Stephen's corner of the Web

So living in Deep River, I have spent some of my time cross country skiing. The skiing here is really nice. There is a trail system at the edge of the town that is maintained by the local cross country ski club. The trails are groomed as needed, by volunteers from the club. There is an abundance of nice dry snow, so the conditions are very nice.

The difference between skiing here and skiing at any of the other trail systems I have been on, is the style of skiing. This is partly affected by the quality of grooming. Other than the half-assed attempt by the Grand River Conservation Authority, everywhere else I have skiied has used large Cat equipment, similar to the equipment to groom the hills at downhill skiing resorts, to groom their trails and in the process made the trails very smooth. This eliminates all the little bumps and gullies along the trail. This is arguably a good result. Any place that has world class skiing and World Cup races has to meet standards for the condition of the trail and quality of the grooming. However, since resources are much less, (this is all volunteers after all), the grooming is done by a couple of snowmobiles or small cat like pieces of equipment (I haven't actually seen it) and a tracksetter. The result is that there tends to be a number of little dips and bumps in the trails.

In the commercial, heavily groomed ski systems, a lot of the skiing is merely keeping your skis in the tracks and propelling yourself forward and except for some hills where you actually have to work hard, there is only a moderate challenge for the technically proficient skiier. Here on the other hend, with significantly rougher tracks, but still well trackset, the trails are quite technical in nature. I find that the skiing here is the most technically challenging skiing I have done anywhere, and is very enjoyable. I even manage to fall occasionally because I let myself get off balance, or out of position. The most technically challenging skiing of all is skiing home from work. There the trail is not packed or trackset by anything other than other skiiers and where they fall :) It is a most enjoyable experience and work out.