As our cross-country ski season shrivels under the attack of a rainstorm and some surges of warmth, the faithful still slide on what's left of continuous trail that we can groom. Out in the wild, skiers will continue to stride on whatever cover they can find, because sliding is easier than plodding.
Skiing began as transportation. In the areas where it sprang up, it answered the need for support in deeper snow, but also offered greater speed with less effort than walking, even when cover was thin. This is all still true. This is why we keep the touring center trails as smooth as possible, and guard the cover so fiercely. Walkers might be able to walk with little difficulty, but skiers could exploit the little bit of snow to flow smoothly. That's much harder when stompers have postholed it to oblivion.
Postholers remain a problem as the more masochistic among them continue to plod even when the snow gets deeper. They also give the fat bikers fits, I hear.
One winter in the early 1990s provided such meager snow that I only found skiing on the floodplain of a small river that flows through my neighborhood. Part of the floodplain was covered with smooth ice from an early winter flood and hard freeze. The ice supported the thin snowcover like a refrigerated ice rink. Away from the iced area, some animal trails were so smoothly tramped down that ribbons of snow snaked through the grasses, shrubs, and small trees. The animals had flattened the soil and mashed down the grasses. The snow lay on top of this. And the floodplain was a great habitat to explore anyway.
That floodplain is no longer accessible because a "shooting preserve" bought the acreage and posted it.
Not all snow is created equal. It doesn't all age well. This winter's snow had such similar weight and density that it tends to soften too much, too quickly, to provide a lot of spring skiing right nearby. The cover lasts longer when some of it arrived in deep, dense storms. We didn't get any of those.
The lake ice was thick this year for the first time in a while. On days when the overnight temperature was below freezing, but the ice surface thaws by late afternoon, it offers great skate skiing, although the flat surface can get a little tedious. It's still fun to slide around before the complete change of seasons puts us back on the ground, in our plain old shoes or riding a bike.
