Cross Country Skiing

[Irulan]

I'm taking a private 2 hr skate ski lesson on Friday. I can classic OK. We've got miles and miles of trails around the corner from the alpine area. I figure I should pick it up ok becasue I am in reasonable shape, and I can skate in my alpine gear like nobody's business. Yes, I know there are differences but i hope it will help me catch on.

[Crankin]

I had an awesome ski today, at Northfield Mountain, in western MA. This is actually a mountain (small) that was bought by a power company. In exchange, they had to develop the land for recreation. While there are a good deal of green trails, some of them great for warming up, there's mostly difficult climbing/descending. However, you can even ascend to the summit on a moderately built road that is a green trail. There's no food here, the center is bare bones... but the grooming is stupendous, as is the scenery. I finally feel like I got my ski legs back. Good thing, we are leaving for Stowe in 3 days. I am not sure how far I went, but we skied for 2 hours.

[Jolt]

Lots of good snow lately for skiing! Have gotten out a few more times, including on the trails at a farm here in town which are open to the public and often groomed. They are a little more challenging than the XC ski center a few towns over, partly because of more ups and downs (with curves on or at the bottom of many of the descents) and partly because people walk there with bare boots and tend to mess up the snow. So far the best I have done on that loop is to "only" fall down twice (yesterday)...will feel pretty good when I get to the point of being able to complete it without wiping out, eating it or crashing once! I have tomorrow off so am planning to take advantage of the new snowfall and get some skiing or snowshoeing in.

[Crankin]

Day one of skiing in Stowe
We went to The Stowe Mountain x country center. The skiing was awesome and challenging. Even the green trails were full of ascents. Had one great long and wide downhill, a couple of scary, twisty, narrow downhills with moguls, and one super steep one that turned and ended at a bridge. My friend the super skier fell. That and one of the others was a black diamond. After lunch, we went back out and did a green/blue loop with one big climb.
On the way back to the cottage, I stopped and got some Epsom salts.

[Jolt]

I did NOT have a good ski day today! Went to the place in town again; it had been groomed but the middle of the trail was higher with depressions on each side (they groom with a machine that has tracks on each side and pulls a big roller, and the roller didn't compact the snow as much as the tracks did) so there was a pretty narrow area to try and stay on. This did not go well when trying to snowplow on descents, particularly since the snow was pretty hard after a warm day yesterday followed by refreezing of what was already some pretty wet snow. I did not even try to do the main loop; the first gradual descent was so scary that I wimped out, turned around and went to a different trail (which was also difficult in spots, especially the curve on a downhill where the trail sloped down toward the outside of the curve--that was good for an awkward crash when I slid to the outside, into the rut, couldn't make the turn, and caught my tip under the hard crust outside the groomed trail). It is just so hard to have any kind of control on this hard packed snow...anyone have any helpful tips? It would be nice to be able to effectively avoid picking up a lot of speed on downhills when the snow is like this. At least when the snow is a little softer the snowplow works! I must have fallen at least five or six times...can you tell I'm frustrated with myself today?

[lph]

On sharp descents with cross-country skis I try to "pulse" my snowplow, as in: plow hard, let up, slide a little to one side, plow hard etc. That gives me better stopping power as I edge harder. Or I'll plow harder on one side, let up, then harder on the other side. It can resemble slalom turns. But on the icy stuff it's sometimes better to just push through, especially if it's narrow, and look for softer patches to snowplow on.

If I find myself picking up a bit too much speed towards a turn crouching down and dragging the inside pole gives me just a little bit of added balance and control. Maybe it's just in my head, but it does work :-)

[Crankin]

I think LPH's advice about pulsing the snowplows is good. For icy downhills, you just have to dig those edges in and slow the snowplow down. The quality of the grooming makes a big difference, as does temperature and sun. You should try another place and experiment with conditions/ different types of grooming.
Days 2 and 3 in Stowe:
Yesterday was snowing like hell and wind gusts up to 30 mph. Out we went at Von Trapp (the hills are alive...). Once in the woods the wind was not much of an issue and it was not that cold. But, blowing snow had pretty much obliterated the grooming, tracks were non-existent and the packed lane was almost back country conditions. Two hours of slogging through that was enough! At the end, we were in open fields, and it was pretty miserable. Not hard terrain, but not fun. Chalk it up as a htfu experience.
Today went back to Trapp and it was perfect. Still some flurries, no wind and 30 degrees. We skied up to the cabin, ate lunch, and skied down, about 20k. It was not technically hard, but long. Tired but happy. No skiing tomorrow, we will shop and drive home.