Cross Country Skiing

Today in the lull between snowstorms, on our first day of sun after about five of constant snow, sleet, wind, and gray skies alternating with white-out, I cross-countried down the power-line corridors with my dog.  I went about 1pm, when I figured sun and temperature to be highest, and I found myself thinking that this is the lemonade we're making of the fiercest winter I can remember, and it's not so bad.  Our Cody frisked ahead, lunging at occasional dead beech leaves that strayed across our trail or lodged in the snowy borders.  The power-line poles laid shadows of french-blue stripes across the blinding-white snow.  My skis scritched through the mealy snowmobile tracks with long schuss-sounds that broke at the ends, more like shutch-shutch.  Level stretches allowed for long strides that gave a feeling of authentic nordic mastery for a few fleeting moments before one edge strays into a deeper groove or I wobble over a patch of pebbled ice.  Conditions are tame enough, though, to glide across the power-line field quickly, and I work up a sweat in fifteen minutes, with Cody lying down in the snow to chew snowballs out of his paws.  In forty-five, we've looped the perimeter, and I'm happy to get back to the car with warm, loose limbs and no falls.          

Comments

[notdotdot]

Wow! You must be in great shape.
Right now, we can't get out of our drive way because of underground springs that (sometimes) flow across and then freeze up, and flow, and freeze...Sigh. So he's out there now with our collie (big help!) putting down de-icing granules so that we can leave to take our walk. What a prduction for us as the world beyond the drive goes merrily on.

[Terri]

NO way could I do that cold ever again. I'm afraid 21 years in Florida has spoiled me terribly.
But it sounds like you and Cody had a great time!

[mythster]

It's been more than thirty years since I left behind the snow and ice except for occasional jaunts on the ski slopes. Last year we went to Park City, Utah where I had my last taste of downhill skiing. If I ever get on the boards again it will be cross-country.
I just can't take the falls anymore. It took me more than six months to get over my Park City tumbles.

Yet your little entry about Cross Country Skiing reminded me of an experience that is etched frimly in my brain and hopefully will never fade.
When I was going to boarding school. I was about eleven and I went home for the short Thanksiving holiday. It was snowing when I arrived and it continued all night and stopped around noon. My father, my stepmother and I strapped on our skis and skimmed through the fresh powder down to the lake, which had frozen before the snow storm and crossed the lake with our purple shadows looming large on the snow. We were the only people out- for a moment it was like we were the only people in the world. A silent world of deep shadows and brilliant snow.

I don't miss life in the frozen north (AKA Westchester County, NYY) but I will always remember my Thanksgiving "Holiday on Ice" and snow.