October 2002

Fresh Snow: Olympic Memories


Fresh SnowWelcome to another year of Cross Country Skier. Our first year was wild and wonderful. First, it was an outstanding learning experience as we refined our editorial philosophy as the season progressed. We are extremely grateful for your positive comments as well as the constructive criticism. The encouragement we've received from readers, advertisers, and members of the cross country ski industry has been reassuring and validating.

This year we renew our commitment to bring you information, education, and entertaining stories from across the cross country skiing spectrum. From the mainstream to the fringe; if it has anything to do with ... Read more >

Training & Technique


Training & Technique Although the first snowflakes may not yet be in the air, it is time for ski magazines to show up in your mailbox and at the newsstand. When those snowflakes do fly, this is the place to find tips and exercises that will help you have more fun on the snow.

Most people have heard the story of the blind man who mistook the elephant's trunk for the elephant itself. No number of facts about the trunk could give the man an accurate picture of the larger animal. Following up the facts with an exercise to experience the trunk through touch, smell, and sound would only have added to the man's misperceptions. As Mary Oliver wrote in her book, Blue Pastures: "A fact: one picks it up and reads it, and puts it down, and there is an end to it. But an idea! That one may pick up, and ... Read more >

October 2002

Destinations: Callaghan County


CALLAGHAN COUNTRYA dreamscape of large peaks and velveteen slopes flow into the valley below me. Two thousand feet down from where I sit in the snow is Callaghan Backcountry Lodge, the realization of a dream Brad Sills and Nic Slater have held since they first gazed into this valley from atop Mt. Callaghan in 1981.

Seventy inches of snow have fallen in the last week, adding to the deep snowpack nurtured by the storms that pounded the lodge all winter. Today, however, the dawn has broken clear and cold. To the southeast, in the direction of Garibaldi Provincial Park and ... Read more >

Destinations: Silver Star Nordic Star


Before my children were born, I imagined them eagerly pursuing the same activities that I enjoy, particularly cross country skiing since I love it beyond all other sports. The fact that as a young person I would have walked on hot coals rather than do anything that my mother found even remotely interesting, did not seem relevant now that I was soon to become a parent myself.

I purchased adorable little secondhand skis and poles for my three sons when the oldest was six and the twins were four. They looked like triplets in their matching ... Read more >

October 2002

Departments: While we were away


Departments: While we were awayThe Outdoor Industry Foundation's Business for Wilderness program released a new report entitled "Protect Today, Play Tomorrow: The Importance of Roadless Area Conservation to Backcountry Recreation."

The report profiles nine recreation destinations located across the country from Georgia to California. Each location is housed within the 58.5 million acres of "roadless areas" covered by the popular forest conservation policy formally known as the Roadless Area Conservation Rule that was issued in ... Read more >

Off Track


I awoke, startled, from a slumber in the warm mid-day sun on the sonnenstrasse of the Gasthof zum Schwarzsee to see Markus standing next to my table extending his hand in greeting. The crisp alpine air, sun, and scenery had lulled me into a relaxed mood high in the Nockberge Mountains of southern Austria.

Markus had agreed to meet me at this guesthouse by a small lake, the Schwarzsee, on the cross country ski trails at Turracher Hohe. Located on the boundary of the Austrian provinces of .... Read more >

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