The economics of long-term survival

"Are there any alpine shops in town?" I've lost count of how many times I've answered that question. The answer is no.

For a few years in the 1990s, the answer was yes, because a sport shop from across the lake tried to open a branch here in town, and that shop spun off another tiny, independent shop that tried to do just about everything. The big competitor found that there wasn't as much money in town as they'd thought. The small, independent guy scraped by in several different locations before shutting down in the first decade of this century.

Meanwhile, our cross-country ski shop is still here. It opened in 1972. It has never sold alpine equipment. We don't do the high-ticket sales that alpine shops do, but we don't have the overhead or the money tied up in expensive inventory.

Cross-country skiing started thousands of years ago, yet I saw one article describe it as "an off-shoot of downhill skiing." That's some ignorant, uninformed bullcrap right there. The fact is, if the economy collapsed tomorrow, people would still be able to -- and perhaps need to -- cross-country ski.

Well short of total societal and economic collapse, cross-country skiing is much more affordable for the skier and the trail provider, accepting natural snow as your standard. Going back to the natural origins of skiing, it developed in snowy areas as a way to get around in them with the least human effort, long before motorized assistance. Wherever snow remains, skiers will be able to cross country, with or without grooming equipment to make it more convenient or allow for specialized techniques like ski skating.

In areas like New England, where the snow type always varied widely, and tended more to the heavy and dense or outright frozen solid, skiing without the benefit of grooming is less reliable, which may be why the native population in this part of the world came up with the snowshoe instead. As the variations get wider and wilder in the changing climate, snowshoes provide reliable traction at the expense of glide. Cross-country skis and snowshoes are kin. They're ancestral ways to address the same problem of winter travel under your own power. With access to both, you can decide on any given day which one fits the conditions. Either way, you have many more opportunities to use the equipment than you have with a heavy, expensive set of alpine skis.

Regardless of the heavy cost of equipment, lift tickets, transportation, accommodations, and the operating of ski areas themselves, downhill skiing remains far and away the more popular form -- so much so that it is referred to as "normal skiing," "real skiing," "actual skiing," or simply "skiing." But in spite of that, an alpine shop has never managed to hang on here. The people with the real money mostly don't spend winters here. The dedicated alpiners got in the habit of shopping out of town long ago. And most skiers don't seem to update their equipment often enough to keep a shop afloat in a marginal economy like semi-rural New Hampshire.

 The alpine shops that have survived nearby are in places like the Mount Washington Valley, or the Laconia-Gilford area near the Gunstock Ski Area, or near other major downhill areas. One outlier is Ski Works in West Ossipee, which used to be near a ski area (Whittier), and managed to hang on after the ski area went belly-up in the late 1980s. It's right on Route 16, the trade route to the ski areas of the eastern part of the state, and also serves the school teams nearby. It survives on its reputation and tradition, drawing from a wide enough area without viable competition. Most of the rest of downhill ski commerce takes place near population centers that may be far removed from actual ski country.

Less expensive doesn't mean free. Cross-country ski areas today depend on motorized grooming equipment that can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, as well as smaller machines for lower snow depths, that still cost tens of thousands. Machinery like that requires off-season trail construction and maintenance to keep the surface wide enough and smooth enough to provide skiing with minimal snow, and a corridor clear enough to let the big machine get through when the snow might be feet deep. But all that grew from trails that were hand cut to the width of one or two people, with a track set by the passage of actual skiers working together to make it neat.

Downhill in the American northeast evolved similarly, because the first downhillers were cross-country skiers already, but they soon realized that they needed a lot more elbow room to go bombing down the steeps in a dense New England forest. Alpine skiing as we know it began in the actual Alps, where dodging trees is not the primary challenge. Transplanting the schussing thrills to the mountains of New England took more than gravity and snow. The amount of terrain and forest alteration needed to make alpine skiing relatively carefree cost a lot more than trimming out basic, old-style cross-country trails, and it's a tiny fraction of the cost of providing dependable manufactured snow.

Snowmaking came along later, as the subtly shifting climate exacerbated New England's already variable snow conditions. Lots of small ski areas either made the change too late or didn't make it at all, and disappeared. The survivors are generally large, sprawling complexes that have to draw skiers from hundreds of miles away. Like prehistoric megafauna, eventually they will leave only their bones for explorers to contemplate. The small and nimble mammals will still roam the forest.

Choosing a binding

All the different shapes and sizes of cross-country skis call for bindings that match the proportions of the ski and its intended use. They also have to match the brand and model of the boot.

Once again, the industry is not the best friend of either the consumer or the retailer. As bad as it was with Rottefella's cheesy NNN system duking it out with Salomon's more solidly made and better supported SNS Profil and Pilot systems, things got worse when Rottefella convinced its manufacturing allies to adopt the NIS plate that only accepts an NNN binding.  While a mounting method that requires no jig and no drilling eliminates most of the problems that made NNN so failure-prone, it also eliminates consumer choice in an obvious move to monopolize the market.

To make matters worse, Fischer and Rossignol decided to stab Rottefella in the back and introduce their own plate, the IFP, that excludes Rottefella bindings and cannot be drilled to mount a Salomon binding on top of it at all. With many -- perhaps most -- skis coming with either a Sin plate (NIS) or the even more heinous IFP plate, consumer choice gets funneled down to just what a couple of manufacturers are willing to provide. These decisions are made by accountants, not by skiers.

Fortunately, the IFP binding takes a regular NNN boot. We haven't quite returned to the System Wars of the 1980s.

Salomon offers their skis pre-drilled to accept any of their own bindings. They also sell an NNN-compatible boot and binding system for skis without a plate. As always, Salomon's version is much better made than anything produced by Rottefella's manufacturing partners. This keeps a shred of choice left in the marketplace for consumers who want or need to mix and match. 

But wait, there's more. 

If you have chosen a moderately heavy ski, perhaps with a metal edge, you will have better control with a beefier boot and binding. The only heavy system binding widely available is Rottefella's NNN-BC. You can get boots for NNN-BC ranging from something slightly heavier than a regular touring boot up to some gnarly models with buckles and external cuffs designed to drive and control the new generation of shorter, wider off-track skis. This is still well short of the state of the art in downhill-oriented backcountry skis. Telemark equipment has reinvented the alpine ski,  making the free heel aspect of the turn completely irrelevant. 

You can still find boots for heavy 75mm bindings.  These were generically referred to as three-pin, even though some models had no pins at all. Some cable bindings used a slide-in toe piece with a fixed bail. If you really plan to take touring skis more than a couple of miles from where you parked your car, use 75mm bindings and boots. They're a proven workhorse. If you prefer touring in semi-refined environments like snowmobile trails, then the NNN-BC system will allow for somewhat more fluid striding -- at least as fluid as you'll get with a chunky BC boot sole. 

It gets tricky on skis that barely reach the threshold of heavy, such as the Fischer Spider 62. Available either as a flat top or with a SIN plate, Spiders are easily skinny enough to use in a set track at a touring center. But the metal edge on the Spiders makes them a trifle heavy for the cheapest and lightest touring boots and bindings. If you don't push the skis very hard,  you might not notice any control problems, but then what was the point of buying a ski with a metal edge? When you jam on the emergency brake, you want it to dig in. Salomon's two-bar Pilot binding gives a lighter boot more lateral control than a basic single-bar binding would. If you're looking at metal edge skis 62 to 70mm wide, choose the Pilot binding or a BC system binding. If nothing else, make sure you get a manual binding rather than an automatic step-in if you go with light touring boots on a ski like that.

It's disheartening to see the suppliers of the cross-country ski industry fighting over market share like a couple of street dogs scrapping over a half-eaten carcass in an alley.  Economic competition does not necessarily favor a better product, only a better marketed product. I guess they all control a ski better than a leather strap across the toe of an elkhide mukluk. In the modern era, it's not about getting large numbers of people to enjoy the physical and emotional benefits of an activity. It's about getting the largest number possible to spend the largest amount of money on it. 

On and Off Winter

Here in central New Hampshire, the winter seemed to get a good start with a 14-inch snowfall on December 29. But the temperature has lurched between the warmth of early spring and appropriately bitter January cold, as if April and January had been broken into chunks, shaken up in a box and dumped out to make this jumble of a winter.

Recognizing the power of exercise to help maintain health as well as fitness, I have explored the possibilities for a person with a low income to pursue a healthy lifestyle by using muscle power for practical purposes. It started with bike commuting, which led to non-motorized outdoor recreation. That was a bit of a cheat, because I could work in the field and take advantage of opportunities the average retail drone would have more trouble pursuing.

Start with this idea: Wherever you live, find the natural environments in which you can explore. I happened to end up here in New England, in the bike and ski business. But when I lived in Maryland, I biked more, hiked where I could, used the bike and my feet for transportation, and went boating with a borrowed kayak in the disregarded margins of the nearby tributaries of Chesapeake Bay.

An ex-wife once said of me that she thought I didn't want money. I answered that I would not mind money, but I care where it comes from. Most of the quick money, the big money, is in destructive activities. The wealth is seductive. It has blinded many people to the underlying demolition of the very supports of life itself. Future generations are going to have to sort that one out, starting with figuring out what to breathe and what to drink.

For myself, I continue to be reminded of how restorative exercise is. Even tedious sweating indoors with weights or machines can administer a tonic, while a nice fast blast on cross country skis is the ultimate one-stop-shop for an afterglow of gratifying well-being.

At slower tempos, cross-country skiing offers perhaps a slightly lower level of metabolic turbo charging, but in return becomes a meditative glide through a winter landscape. It still activates every system in the body. It's good to go slow sometimes, as well as fast. Indeed, if you want to go really fast, you have to go slowly some of the time, and make sure you rest, so the body can build from the destructive phase of training. And if you just want to enjoy a broad spectrum of the ski experience, and benefit from a lower intensity version of the training wave, mix it up as much as you can between sporty outings on prepared surfaces and mellower sessions to enjoy the scenery.

Coming off of a respiratory virus that dogged me coming out of the Christmas Week tourist onslaught, I did a few chore skis in my woods, gathering kindling, and made one slushy plod on the groomed trails on a warm Wednesday. On Friday night of that week, I spent the night in wall-pounding agony, passing a kidney stone that came from who knows where. I was back at work on Saturday and Sunday, because wage slaves gotta keep that paycheck coming. That was going into the Martin Luther King Day holiday, so I went in on Monday morning, too, in case the rental shop was busy. As it worked out, I was able to punch out after a couple of hours. I took advantage of the surviving machine groomed granular snow on the hillier half of our trail network. It was great for skate skiing. The aftermath, as always, was a deep feeling of warmth and energy.

Wherever you live, keep moving if you are moving, and start moving if you aren't. We have to prove that there's a demand for infrastructure to encourage people to move themselves. It's not a chore or a penalty. It's a gift. It makes you sleep better and be more awake when you're awake. It reminds your body that there's a reason to be ready. You don't even have to know what to be ready for. You just know you're ready.

We've rapidly evolved a social system and civilization that shoves us into motorized cans and sedentary environments. That feeds itself, making us feel more tired, more pressed for time. It was easy to decide not to join it in the late 1970s, when I was becoming legally an adult. It's harder and harder to escape from when you've accepted it as normal from early in life. But escape is vital not only to your own survival, but the survival of our species.

Cross country skiing may live or die in many parts of the world, as climate change destroys the conditions that support it. The activity itself is great, but the mindset that you bring to any self-propelled activity is what really matters. Refuse to be stopped. By sheer numbers, we become something the bean counters can't ignore. When destruction no longer has customers, the market will shift. But it takes informed consumers to demand it.

In winter's claws

Some people hate to let go of winter.

Sometimes winter hates to let go.

This year, the cold keeps coming, and with it the wind. Here we are, two days into spring -- by the calendar -- with a high temperature of 18 degrees and a frigid wind blasting from the west at 10-20 miles per hour with gusts to 40. It swoops on the landscape like a great bird of prey, ready to snatch up any warm body that dares to scamper across its path. It pounces on the timid. The only way to deal with it is to meet it with your own ferocity. For an hour or so, anyway. Then get the hell inside and have something warm to drink.

As a bike commuter, I am more than ready to put away my car and get back to pedaling. But as a skier and a practical person, I'll keep using the ski conditions we have. Who knows when they'll be back? Winters seem to be all or nothing anymore. So maybe the next one will be another epic or maybe a muddy slog. Gather ye ski days while ye may.

I would have no worries at all if I wasn't running out of firewood. Fortunately, as daylight gets longer the sun helps take the edge off during the day. Just don't sit still for long. The house that felt warm when you walked in from the frigid gale feels less like a nest when your metabolism slows down.

Can't complain about the skiing. The ridiculously bitter cold has kept our snow from sizzling away completely in the strengthening sunshine. Because business has slowed way down at the shop, as it does at the end of every winter, our groomer can put in plenty of time to till up and smooth out the trails. We have basically full coverage. The skating is particularly fast. Like, "holy crap, that's fast!"

The rare thaw days are slow. They probably seem even slower in contrast to the days on either side of them.

Rain in the forecast for mid-week may spell the end of all skiing. It has to come eventually. The snow won't hold up to several days of wetness and warmth.

I'm really glad I got to feel this good before we have to put away the skis for a few months. It had been too long.

Treats vs a Steady Diet

When I lived in Maryland, ski conditions were rare. If I got to ski in Annapolis it meant that a significant storm for that area had brought usable snow that might last only a day. Sometimes we might get a week out of it. Skiing was a treat.

Even if we did not get to ski in our own neighborhood, skiers from the area would make a special trip to western Maryland, West Virginia or Pennsylvania for a better shot at usable snow. Because it was a dedicated expedition, skiing was the main focus of the trip. Whether we stayed in a hotel or camped out, we ate and slept only to fuel and rest ourselves for skiing.

After moving to what we used to consider ski country, I started to experience skiing as part of a more routine daily schedule. I had to go to work, clean the house, buy groceries, and all the other details of a regular life. I did not live in ski clothes for the whole winter the way I would live in those clothes for a whole visit to winterland. Convenience actually makes skiing less convenient. You have to suit up for it and then change into appropriate garb for whatever you have to do next.

Granted, when skiing came to Annapolis I was fitting it in around my workaday schedule. I was younger, so skiing for two or three hours at night didn't wear me out as much as it does now. The excitement of having snow added to my energy. Living in a place where snow is more normal erodes the excitement. It does not come back once it's gone. I have to clear that snow from around my home before I get to play on it.

Another result of regular skiing is a higher standard of skiing. I recall my eager fumbles for the first few years. Every bit of progress was great. I would visit New England and feel like I must not look too bad out there. After a couple of decades living up here I know how I looked. I've seen a lot of other people look that way. The innocence was nice while it lasted. Knowing better is a burden one cannot put down. Indulge the innocent, but you cannot rejoin them. Well, I can't anyway.

I still enjoy skiing in the woods in much the same way as I always did. It's an ancient style of practical skiing. But on the highly refined crack cocaine of modern grooming with performance gear I can't settle for a wheezy wobble. Better to avoid the groomies altogether than remind myself of how far I have fallen. If by luck I happen to get into some kind of shape again I can sneak in the side entrance and try to zip around a little.

Transportation Skiing

As someone who commuted by bicycle in a place where it seldom snowed and the snow that fell seldom stayed, I looked forward to trying to use my cross-country skis for transportation once I moved to the Frozen North.

Global warming quickly combined with the fact that the Frozen North's reputation was quite exaggerated already. Also, like everywhere else in the United States, transportation infrastructure was entirely committed to motor vehicles. That's changing now, but only very gradually.

The best years for daily skiing were the otherwise dark ones I spent running a retail concession at Jackson Ski Touring. Whatever else might happen when dealing with a staff and clientele that could be patronizing or duplicitous (big word, JSTFers -- look it up!) I had pretty good odds of getting out on the trail.

Along with the relief of returning to Wolfeboro came the realization that I had probably skied my last. The trail quality at Wolfeboro Cross Country can often rival that of its large, smug and more expensive cousin in Jackson, but our small staff can't assure that much of it will be ready for employees to take a meaningful training session before the shop opens. Everyone has to wear a stack of hats here. Gone are the days when we could tag out for a scamper on our own trails.

After three winters basically without skiing, a trudge on the rail trail on my 200cm back-country skis now sounds downright attractive. Forget the beauty glide, the perfect stride, Blue Extra kick wax or a ripping skate over hill and hollow. I never even took the storage wax off my performance skis last year. I might have gotten out twice on rock skis. But the farther I get from the beautiful rush of fast skis on good grooming the more willing I am to settle for a ski-like plod witrh some long, pointy planks and heavy boots. It's a good walk enhanced.

Parking, as always, is the key. You have to have a relatively secure place to stuff the automobile when you switch to the skis. If snow is falling will you be able to get the car out of its spot or will the road crews have turned it into a monument to Shackleton's Endurance? My colleague Big G and I think that we might find a usable spot at a reasonable distance out the rail trail. Big G has the advantage of someone who might be convinced to drop him off, thus eliminating the need for parking on those days.

When snow fell in Annapolis I would stay up all night if I had to, skiing around the neighborhood and the nearby Navy housing. Until the plows caught up, local cross-country skiers would go as far as the snow cover let them. I remember racing a jogger through the Naval Academy one day. The snow was the perfect depth to make our speed nearly equal, but I had a slim advantage. I hope he was as ready to puke as I was by the end of our sprint. We never got closer to each other than about 30 yards on our parallel lines across one of the parade grounds.

With any luck Big G and I will come out of this winter slimmer and happier than we have been in the previous three years. Because the rail trail is level we don't have to worry as much about ice-like surfaces as we would if we had to climb much or set edges to turn or stop. This could be good, or at least better than nothing.

Satisfaction

Back in the days when I thought of myself as a good skier I would start to feel the elation of a good, vigorous ski as I headed out the door. It wasn't always that easy, but during a good active season the momentum would build in waves. Even my bad moods were good. My good moods were insane.

The past three winters have dismantled all that. As a result I have conducted an accidental experiment. Starting with a fit, athletic specimen I have reduced him to a sedentary blob, aided by the pressures of work and life. Now I have some hint of how normal people feel.

Normal is awful.

The recent snow came too late to save any of the high-earning periods of our commercial season, but it did open the trails for a weekend. Grateful skiers and snowshoers appeared in crowds of one or two. Those ones and twos added up to a full parking lot from time to time, but the shop remained mostly quiet. As a result I suddenly got to ski two days in a row after the winter of nearly complete inactivity.

Warm days made the surface slushy. The first day, on Fischer RCR Crowns, the track had been nearly obliterated by skiers, snowshoers and stomping teenagers who trample all over the trails with a plastic sled. My half hour plod didn't change me much. The second day, however, my results varied.

The day was warm, the surface was slushy and the trampling teens had been back. Based on my observations from the day before I decided that waddling on skating skis would be marginally better than waddling on the classical skis I had available. I went for about 40 minutes on the widest soft rental skate skis I could find. They weren't as wide as my old Atomics, but they would have to do.

It was my first real workout since January 2011. Bike commuting is good steady exercise, but it does not work the body as thoroughly as vigorous cross-country skiing does. In the summers I used to paddle a kayak. In any season without skiing I used to train with weights. Choosing to use my time on other things, those activities have disappeared from my schedule.

As an experiment it set the stage for conspicuous results.

I finished my haphazard waddle feeling quite a bit of the usual euphoria. All the effects were there: higher body temperature through the afternoon and evening indicated increased metabolism well after I finished skiing. Annoying cheerfulness indicated the release of endorphins that had seemed inaccessible under the sludge of inactivity.

Weak propelling muscles and a deteriorated cardiovascular system make you slow. Weak steering and stabilizing muscles make you sloppy. Trained reflexes call for the right action at the right time. The body remembers. But early fatigue in the support system makes the response inaccurate.

Because many of the stabilizing and steering muscles are pretty small, they tone up quickly. This is why form returns rapidly once you get to go out on a regular basis. This late in the season, regular skiing seems highly unlikely. Who knows what next winter might bring. I no longer plan for anything. Understanding how the body responds to an activity makes it easier to adapt when the opportunity does arise. So in a matter of a  week or two at most I will probably be getting my posterior accustomed to regular bicycling again rather than trying to hone anything related to skiing.

Reality has a way of slapping euphoria right out of you. I could say something glib about how we should all just go ski, but honesty compels me to admit that many problems remain that can't be addressed by any artificial mood enhancers. Maybe a few minutes of escapism are the best anyone can expect. Nothing really gets fixed because too many points of  view need to be accommodated.

Skiing is a nutrient

Exercise is not a luxury. I wonder how the political climate in this country might change if the majority of people got out for a nice walk or bike ride every day. The feelings of frustration and irritation so common between factions might disappear almost entirely. They creep up so insidiously that a person's outlook can shift drastically toward greater darkness and anger by nearly unnoticeable steps.

For a cross-country skier that activity forms a critical part of metabolism. Because cross-country skiing is the most complete exercise you can perform on land, it activates every system of the body. You burn food more efficiently. You hydrate more thoroughly. You tone every muscle. A body accustomed to that suffers from the loss of it. A mind accustomed to it notices the difference. Everything slumps.

Snow has arrived as winter enters its final phase. The season begins as it ends. It's too late for most of us to get the confident, calm feeling that develops over many weeks of skiing. But the wretched season has crystallized the concept for me that skiing needs to happen. Everyone who works in this business needs to get out there and do it every day there's snow. It's not an indulgence any more than being properly fed is an indulgence. It makes us better at our jobs. We serve our customers better. We run the business better.

In the economy in general, a more humane attitude toward the work day would go a long way to making life much sweeter and the population healthier. How about this: everyone gets two hours in the best part of the day to take a jog, a walk, a bike ride, a ski or an indoor exercise class, and get lunch. It doesn't come out of your pay as long as you do something active. Self-propelled commuters can substitute somthing else for the exercise hour, like an art class, chess games, writing or a music lesson. You can't take a double lunch or just go smoke somewhere. You can, but you don't get paid.

We have to live by the experience, not by the numbers.

Another great XIMS product

The new apron from XIMS is made of stiff, coated fabric that would make a sturdy expedition pack or bomb-proof tent floor. Since most of us who have worked too long as shop drones have only homelessness to look forward to once we're too old to be of the slightest use in outdoor retail, the introduction of this product is quite timely. Baby Boomers are aging rapidly and many of us failed to score good pension benefits. Since Social Security and Medicare are unnecessary burdens on the taxpayers and it's too late for us to make huge gains in private investment, population reduction will at last be accomplished through hypothermia, malnutrition, violence and disease.

I suppose those of us with fond memories of camping trips and perhaps some leftover equipment might fare a little better in the fiscally conservative, Live and Let Die future. If we can poach some small game or arrange to scavenge in the trash cans of our financial superiors the life could provide a certain gritty comfort.

Along with the health insurance companies we wish ourselves a quick and relatively painless final illness when the time comes.

Snow, Lies and Ski Reports

Promoters of skiing look for any way they can make conditions sound inviting. At its worst, this means sheer ice referred to as packed powder because that's what it was three weeks ago and big, brown patches of bare ground called "thin cover." But the psychology never stops.

Nordic skiing has always tried to wear the white hat. Reliance on natural snow and small budgets forces a measure of honesty. Cross-country ski centers find creative ways to interpret how many kilometers of trail they have, and refer to a portable toilet as a restroom, but we don't get paid enough to defend claims inflated far beyond that. And of course we describe our snow conditions as charitably as possible.

To keep enthusiasm alive, some operators resort to such entertaining fiction as the Inaccuweather 15-day and hourly forecasts. I suppose some veterans of such a weather-dependent industry as Nordic skiing might believe that a forecast further than three days out has any value at all, but not many. Especially not one who spends summers sailing the New England coast. But when it's time to spin the ski report, out comes the 15-day fable.

"Snow is mentioned on ten of the next 15 days in the forecast," this expert might say. Let's not say that the probability is 10 or 20 percent and the snow is merely showers or flurries.

I understand how the fervent desire to believe in something like a good, snowy winter, eternal life or the human race living in peaceful, prosperous harmony can cancel out rational intelligence. The rational leader looks for ways to sustain belief in wavering followers. Their lives will be better if they believe. The collection plates will be more full. The truth is as fuzzy as a snow cloud on the horizon. Think of the possibilities, not the likelihood.

It's funny how flakes in the air can add up to so little on the ground. We had two or three days of snow, sometimes falling thickly, and netted perhaps six inches of very compressible fluff. To the north and east, parts of Maine and the adjacent Canadian provinces got the real stuff, measurable in feet.

Snowshoe hiking has largely replaced cross-country skiing for the average tourist. With somewhat shallow snow, those who still ski have the advantage. There's no point to plodding around with something like a couple of cafeteria trays on your feet when you don't need to float over knee- or thigh-deep snow. Meanwhile, we sliders can slither on the compressed snow, provided the surface beneath was fairly smooth.

As for the future, I readily admit I do not know. But it is winter and we could get snow.

The Days You Wait For

Slipped away this afternoon, spanning mid-day, really, to wander up the back mountain and rip a few runs through the logging cuts and glades.

It's not as secluded as it used to be. People who had a cabin up and to the right are building a castle now. It's completely off-grid and supposedly still just for seasonal and occasional use, but it's huge and not as high up the mountain. The original cabin sat in a hollow near a stream. This monster sits on a ridge. It's screened by trees, more or less, but that just makes it easier to stumble on. I don't know how workers are getting there with all this snow, but I hear them every time I go out. Today was no exception.

I'd stayed to my right going up, in the cover of woods beside a recent cut. This took me near the top of some hemlock glades I hadn't visited in a while. That's when I heard the radio and realized I'd strayed close to the Tyvek cliff. The house blends in amazingly well. Suddenly you notice not only that it's there, but that it's gigantic. I cut left and dropped into a nice line. Once I had the curve of the hill between me and the building I angled up and left.

Playing the contours I traversed toward a drainage with more conifer glades. I didn't plan to reach it, but got there before I knew it. Rather than get drawn into the longer runs (and longer climbs back out) I turned back toward Lower Bobcat Rocks, where we'd seen some scat at the end of last winter. The sun hit the pinkish granite alluringly. It looked like a good place to bask.

The slope, the spaces and the snow encouraged long, angling runs back toward the rocks. The rocks themselves didn't offer a place to perch. No matter. I would drop a little through the trees, stop and look around, drop a little further. The sky turned a high-altitude navy blue through my polarized sunglasses if I tilted my head just right.

The older cuts are growing up in saplings now. In a narrow stance I could cut through at a steady speed. Any attempt to turn harder or stop short would have ended in a foolish heap. The snow was sticky in the sun, too. Once you get moving in snow like that you want to keep moving. So after every halt to enjoy the peace and sunshine I had to kick start the next section.

You do your time the rest of the winter to get to March. I do my time on the groomies to be in shape for the better getaways to places untracked. This was just a taste, but high grade. Sunny days in March are the brightest we see all year, with light from above and below. Premium stuff.

Jackson Ski Touring was like Nordic Graduate School

In 2000, when I first arrived at the Jackson Ski Touring complex, I knew a lot more about dodging trees and skiing with various kinds of load on my shoulders than I did about the laboratory-perfect skating and striding a facility of that caliber allows.

Faced with the need to serve a varied and as-yet-unknown clientele, I knew I would have to get up to speed in a hurry. I had enough familiarity with a broad range of Nordic technique and technology to get started. The touring center itself provided the depth.

Thrown in at the deep end with a variety of stressors, I also had a number of resources to draw on. These included a ready supply of gear and a trail network that ran right by the door. Convenience like that is hard to beat. In addition, the facility had some highly knowledgeable and accessible people on the staff or among the regular clientele.

The popular term for my learning style is "autodidact." This is a nice way of saying "stubborn jerk who doesn't do well in structured learning situations." I speak only for myself, not for the respectable body of admirable autodidacts out there. Given the wealth of experience and knowledge trailside at Jackson I was able to glean knowledge and perform my experiments in a continuous thread throughout each ski season.

In every case I try to share what I have learned unstintingly with anyone who hasn't encountered it yet. I don't care if they admire me for knowing it. I don't care if they even know my name. I just want them to know what I know so they know it themselves and can take advantage of it. So from that standpoint, Jackson was a banquet of experience translated into shared knowledge.

It was always about the skiing. Exposed on the sales floor it was also like improvisational theater. Under the spotlights, before a live audience, play your heart out. Many customers thanked me or members of my staff for the full, complete and honest presentation. We matched up a lot of skiers with carefully chosen gear. A number of them continue to seek us out. Sometimes this involved staying well after closing time. Our schedule hardly rivals the grueling days of the center's executive director or the brute labors of the patrol, especially in lean snow years that require a lot of shoveling, but in terms of hours awake and time spent thinking about how to make it work the job very soon expanded to consume a lot of life outside of official business hours.

In the spirit of cooperative enterprise, retail staff would often have to answer questions about the facility when Foundation staff were either overwhelmed by other customers or momentarily absent. It's like working in Walt Disney World: everyone has to know the layout of the park and the location of the nearest restrooms or snack bars. We did this without being asked.

Mind you I only lasted one summer at Disney World. I prefer my rides less structured and predictable.

I can be pretty blunt when sharing my opinions. Try as I might to be informative and entertaining, I have to face the fact that I also just piss some people off. Thrown on stage in a setting like Jackson, where the business structure can be confusing even to those somewhat familiar with it, let alone visitors from away, when I stepped on someone's toes it had a disconcerting way of echoing across miles and miles of New England, sometimes even rattling windows lightly as far away as LL Bean headquarters. I never did get used to that. Who really could? Even stranger, I often would not hear a sound until months later when I was knocked off my feet by a shock wave.

None of that has a single thing to do with skiing. When I found I could not control it, I ignored it, concentrating on what I could do instead. I remember a friend in college, a graduate student in French, telling me hair raising tales of departmental intrigue, politics and hostility. People get caught up in the importance of their own little universe and start playing all kinds of games with each other's heads. One grad student in that program committed suicide. Things that start out centered on something that's supposed to be light hearted can turn surprisingly poisonous.

Any season could have been the last. Because of that I always tried to value the experience of skiing there and experience it as often as possible. It's simple on the snow. Just ski.

The Magic Land of Winter

Yesterday I blasted myself out of the sludge of fatigue and distraction to go for an hour up the mountain out back.

After a long time neglecting this convenient resource I am always surprised at how much it has to offer. I used to drive four hours to get to stuff like this. Now I ignore it right outside my back door.

The snow was three feet deeper at its height last year than it is now. That peak hit late in February or early in March. We had quite a bit of thawing between storms last year, so it was amazing that the storms brought snow every time and that it held up as well as it did.

There's just enough snow to cover the worst reefs out there. The powder has settled. The weather has been solidly cold for weeks.

On the climb I came across a tree carved with two names and a date.

Who were these people?

I like skiing alone because it gives me an excuse to go as slowly and cautiously as I like. The dense powder held my skis back on surprisingly steep slopes so I was able to sweep majestically through the trees on the way down.

The slope faces south. It makes a great place to bask as winter matures under strengthening sun. Late in the winter it loses snow quickly. For now, it's a great option because it is warm and well-lighted late into the afternoon.

Now snow falls in what is supposed to be a big storm. At some point the possibility becomes a certainty, so a couple of feet of freshies seems more likely than not. We'll see if the winter continues to build the way it did last year.

It's a cliche, but

Cross-country skiing is as much fun as sex, and most people look as bad doing it.

Like sex, cross-country skiing causes a lot of bodily secretions to flow. They just mostly come out of different openings. So cross-country skiers perform their exertions coated with glistening moisture. They grunt. They sweat. They breathe hard. Afterward they're suffused with a glow of satisfaction, or perhaps frustrated by an inadequate performance. Usually you feel better than when you started.

You'll see occasional beautiful people and professionally competent-looking performers. You have to wonder if it feels as good to those show ponies, or if it's just a job. Some of them do seem to know arcane secrets of ecstasy beyond the powers of the average grunt. Is it worth it? What if it isn't really any better, just strenuously kinkier? You never know until you try. But you increase the odds of hurting yourself when you try to get to those advanced levels. You could drown in the hot tub or fall from the trapeze or asphyxiate because you didn't get the scarf untied fast enough-- I mean you could hit a tree on the way down a steep trail you weren't ready for, or pull a muscle.

Go for it. Have fun. I, for one, won't be watching too closely.

Beachier than the Beach

Whatever else is happening, spring or late winter skiing days have a relaxed feel unmatched by anything else. The climate seems milder under sunny skies at 36 degrees on solid snowpack than at 50 degrees under endless late April rain. So take the healing effects of the rising sun and dropping consumer demand. This is our time.

Even temperatures below freezing lose their bite under the rising sun of March. Sure, the clouds can close over us and the wind bite hard, but its days are numbered. Lather on the sun screen and go out into the sunniest weather of the year. Leafless trees don't shade you, while the reflective snow throws light into ravines and hollows that might not see it any other time. The landscape is lit from above and below.

When the snow is gone, even longer days feel shorter and darker. The earth sucks in the graying slush. Brown, gray and tan absorb the light the snow used to give back at full value. Enjoy the bright world now.

Like Magic

In a surge of conscientiousness, I have remained faithfully at my post in the retail shop on solo days for the last 2.75 seasons. But today was too much. Beautiful sunshine, firm trails softening beneath March's tropical glare and racers beginning to gather for the weekend's competition kicked too much sand in my face for me to sit idly.

After a nice lung-hucking 40-minute sprint on skate skis I was no longer counting the minutes until quitting time. Efficiency and attitude improved.

Back in action...mostly

As I lay on the couch last Wednesday I realized that I had to force myself to go back to work or I would simply call in sick each day for the next month.

Might as well get paid to feel like crap. Besides, I had clearly turned the corner on this illness. It seems to be a strain of flu overlooked in the flu shot formula for this year. I've clammed out the Mucinex guy's couch dozens of times in the past week. By the way, I have not used the product. But I suddenly imagined an advertising account executive clamming in the sink and going, "Hey! I can do something with this!"

At least I've had a great answer for those chirpy bastards who ask, "How ya doin'?" when they come into the shop. With sinuses and upper chest full of congestion, I have a whole arsenal of noises with which to answer. As an additional benefit, it makes them back away.

By Friday I had resumed skiing. Loafing along in an easy classical stride I could use strategic clams and snot rockets to gain elbow room in the crushes of tourists with no concept of trail etiquette. This may sound like a breach of etiquette in itself, but most people active in the cold winter air have to deal with phlegm disposal issues. That is a minor component of trail etiquette.

Most beginner to intermediate skiers not only appear to forget most of what they learned in their basic lesson as soon as they leave the practice field, they also don't know who has the right of way in simple passing and meeting situations. They also clump at trail intersections, ski in disorderly wads occupying the entire trail and stop for gear adjustments or picnics wherever the fancy strikes them, such as on blind corners and drops or dropping blind corners. Or they might set up a lunch pit six inches to the side of the set track and then give dirty looks to people who actually use that track, whose pole tips fall a reasonable distance left and right of the ski track.

Then there are the worse violations of decorum.

Incidentally, skiers coming down hill are supposed to have the right of way over skiers climbing. Descending skiers will sometimes waive this right if they aren't fanatically into the downhill and the skier climbing is stomping up the track at a good pace. Also, on sections with poor visibility, such as curves or increasing slopes, skiers may come upon each other with little warning and make a snap maneuver to avoid collision.

Skiers should make every effort to avoid completely blocking a trail. Slower skiers should yield to faster skiers. Skiers using different techniques on a trail that allows both should do their best to accommodate each other. Skaters poaching a classic-only trail should realize that they have waived all their constitutional rights and must kiss everybody's ass until they reach a trail where they are allowed to be. They may then resume their typical savagery.

If you insist on relieving yourself right beside the trail, try this new product!

Leaving a trail of flames...

A big storm brought a thick mat of clouds hours ahead of its snow, sleet and freezing rain. Knowing that the warm, moist storm would turn everything slow and sticky, we resolved to go out early, skating on the fast, granular snow left from the last cycle of thawing and refreezing.

Thursday night the skating was fast and raspy. Friday morning it was just fast.

Succumbing further to addiction, I put on a layer of Swix HF 7 BD before heading out the Ellis.

When I have limited time to ski, I prefer to take a trail that has few steep climbs and descents. A steep trail demands high output going up, but only tests the reflexes coming down. A flatter, rolling trail promotes more continuous output. Since part of the objective is to burn off dietary excesses, sustained moderate output does the job better than clawing my way up something and screaming down it again.

Problem is, on trails as fast as Friday's I couldn't keep anything moderate and low key. The first three strides before I even put my hands in the pole straps told me conditions were rocket fast. How could I resist?

The Ellis River Trail climbs gradually along the river for which it is named, going over a few minor hills on the way, ending up with a bit more undulation as it approaches its northern end at the Rocky Branch Trail parking area on Route 16. For my typical getaway, I don't get nearly that far along it. I just need something to keep me going in case I ever get to do more.

The trail feels basically flat going upstream, but cumulatively gains perhaps a couple of hundred feet from low end to high end. The climbing is easy. The return trip is easier. If you feel like putting something into it, you can really fly. And today was a day for it.

I made it to the river crossing near the Dana Place Inn in the time it usually take me to go two-thirds as far. On the return leg I felt like I must be leaving flaming tracks behind. At moderate speeds it would have been effortless. Putting out the excited energy I was, it was ripping.

I actually enjoy the skiing more when I feel the speed as a direct result of my effort, not just the pull of gravity. Push! Whoosh! Push! Whoosh! Rip! Rip! Rip! On the wooded Ellis trail, the scenery goes by on either side, sometimes quite close. This is better than in an open field, where the sense of speed can be lost to the distance to the nearest marker.

To put it in perspective, however, my zippy rippy trip took about 20 minutes LONGER than the racers took to double-pole it on classical skis in the race the week before. And for them it was just the second half of their race. They already had about 12 kilometers on them before they started the Ellis. Good thing I have no delusions of racing speed and prowess. It's all just for fun.

Jonesin'

I have had no exercise of any kind since Sunday. This puts me in a very bad frame of mind.

I refuse to apologize for being an exercise addict. I figured out at a young age that humans get addicted to things, so they'd better choose those fixations wisely. I already loved junk food and pulp fiction, so I needed some offsetting habits. I hate puking, so bulimia was out.

The sun sets later now than at the start of the season, so if I dash right out of work I can crack off a few laps with some semblance of visibility before I have to grope. When that happens, I keep going around until I think I've pushed my luck far enough and then quit. From a conditioning standpoint, it's purely a token effort, but it keeps some kind of rhythm until I can give it a good shot later. I need to replace my high-powered headlamp, but I haven't seen one I really like yet.

The Surly Blog had a great list of symptoms of depression. My favorite was, "Drinking the same amount as usual but being less excited about it."

I have to finish brushing out my skis and put my ski clothes on so I can make a rapid exit at 17:00.

Snow like Silk, Wind like Needles

Sunday's snow fell cold and fine, whipped and swirled by the northeast wind. It was a day to wax long for classical and leave the skate skis in the rack.

With temperatures in the lower mid-teens, Swix V 20 or VR 30 worked perfectly as long as you applied it long and thin. The skis slid smoothly through the silky powder in contrast to the stinging assault of the wind on the way across the open fields to reach the woods.

In the shelter of the trees the track no longer disappeared in drifted snow, at least not as quickly. This sheltered trail attracted most of the skier traffic, so they renewed the track as each one passed.

I felt less like a badly made puppet this time. Conditions steadily improve and I improve with them. The brain knows what to ask the body to do, but the body can't seem to deliver it with the same grace and power I remember from the best of every season past. But the short sections in which it all works get longer and more frequent until they merge into the continuous flow that keeps me looking for it.

The fact that February conditions have arrived at the middle of December doesn't seem as strange as it should. New England has traditionally been able to dish up an early winter just as easily as it produces depressing months of gray and brown with only slush and ice to coat the dead leaves and half-frozen mud. We choose to believe that the legendary winters are the true reality and the gray desolation is abnormal, but averages are made of extremes combined and divided equally. We're making out this year. That's all we can say.