Fun in the Snow

Where I live we can get quite a bit of snow in the winter. This year, that has been especially true. When you add in the fact that this year the temperatures have been pretty warm (for winter) it means that not doing winter sports would just be silly. One nice thing about where I live is that the area is surrounded by a lot of undeveloped land. Even where land is developed they have also made it possible for people to ski or snowboard without having to travel a long distance to do so.

Yesterday it was super warm. I have wanted to cross country ski for years. I used to do it when I was a kid and I really remember it being a lot of fun. We decided that since temperatures were actually going to be above 0 Celsius that yesterday would be a good day to go. We had a blast. Because my husband is military we were able to borrow boots, skis and poles for free and go skiing on the military base. There are trails all through the campground that are groomed for just that purpose.

It was super sunny yesterday. The trail goes along by the river for a little while before it goes back into the woods and there was a bit of a chilly breeze coming off the water but other than that it was beautiful.

The gentleman skiing away from me in the top left-hand picture is my husband. He's had more practice lately than I have thanks to the fact that he goes skiing for PT. It's not hard to have had more practice than me lately. In fact, anyone who had been skiing once in the last 28 years would have had more recent practice than I did. But, really, that's neither here nor there.

Flat trails are great. I'm super good with flat trails. Problem is, this area is really, really.... not flat. There are one or two significant hills along this trail. I'm proud to say that I didn't fall (the first day) nor did I take out the small child who was skiing with their mother. I had to wait for them to pass because really, I have 0 steering ability at this point and I'm tall enough and heavy enough that I would have done them serious injury had I smacked into them.

We were out for about an hour and went a couple of kilometers. Don't ask me how far, I forgot to turn on my tracking watch thing and it felt like we went a really REALLY far distance. Adjusting for me being a middle-aged potato and all, I'd say we did between 2 and 3 kms.

Did I mention I'm a glutton for punishment? I am. It's not my best personality trait but it would explain why I ended up going skiing again today. Except that today we tried a DIFFERENT ski trail. The trail yesterday was (mostly) flat. The one today was hills. All hills (it felt like). Hills BOTH ways. Yesterday, I didn't fall. Today, the only reason I only fell ONCE was that I took my skiis off and walked for part of it. Yesterday the snow was soft and fluffy and nice. Today the snow was nasty and icy and angry.

There are no pictures of today, you say. Nope. I was too busy swearing and worrying about death and broken bones to take pictures today. My husband wiped out about four times. Neither one of us hit any large trees but I will say that its a bit of a miracle. Whoever broke this trail felt that a nice feature would be steep downhill stretches that ended in sharp curves. Add in large trees right where the curves were and you have a recipe for disaster.

I had enough fun Saturday that I know skiing will be one of my regular winter fitness activities. Who doesn't like long screaming streams of swear words and a fear of death, right? All kidding aside, I know that once I get more practice in that I'm going to have a blast out on the trails. I just need to figure out how not to break anything important in the meantime.