The Joy of Spring Skiing

Even though the calendar doesn't say that it is officially spring, the temperatures for the last 12 days have sky rocketed (40-55 F every day). The tall snow banks in my yard have dwindled to a short status with more bare spots showing up each day. There is still plenty of snow in some parts of the woods but the ski trails that have been packed all winter are the most beautifully intact. Even though the melt rings around neighboring trees are getting larger, there are no bare spots at Blueberry Ridge Ski Trails that I'm aware of.

Spring skiing is kind of a scientific art. If I were to venture out to the ski trails too early, they are like a luge run...fast and ferocious...but if I wait too long, it's kind of like skiing in mud. I'm fairly good at figuring out conditions from my arm chair, as I regularly check the temps to see what the lows are before I go to bed. I re-check them in the morning and then calculate approximately how many hours the trails may have been exposed to freezing temps, if any. The sun is a huge factor too, I actually prefer the gray days, even rainy days, as the trails heat up more consistently. The sunny days produce screaming descents in the shade only to hit a warm spot half way down and my body wants to override the skis...that has resulted in some hilarious technique to say the least.

Yesterday, none of that helped me. I sauntered over to the trails expecting it to be in the perfect time window. I put on my ski boots, clipped them into the ski bindings and took off. Wait a minute, why am I getting no kick at all? Could it be that I doomed my progress this morning by waxing my skis? I  hadn't waxed them for a week and I thought it was time to give them proper treatment. I had headed out on the classic trails at Blueberry, the Crossroads Trail is the first loop on that side of the system. The loop is fairly bland but always a good warm up. I ventured onward determined that the kick would develop....After a klick or so I even stopped to check the tracks to see if they were really more frozen than I had calculated. They were slick enough but far from frozen. A continuous parade of thoughts floated through my head thinking mostly that this is either going to get better or I am in for a hard but short ski.

At some point, for whatever reason I glanced down and out of the corner of my eye I noticed a small blue tag on one of my skis...wait a minute.......no wonder ...... the blue tag is a square of blue masking tape that I put on each pair of my skating skis to let me know how they are waxed...it's too hard to remember from time to time so I just label them with an initial. How this comes into play is that I don't label my classic skis as I only have two pairs of them and one pair is no wax....I am trying to classic on skating skis!!!...no wonder I am failing.

Well, that explains my loss of technique but now I have to get back and I can't skate as I am on the classic only trails. Double poleing with no kick is the only thing that works but it gets exhausting fast. I never was so glad to see the parking lot where I retrieved my classic skis from the vehicle and went out for a real ski. What joy!

I love every second of spring skiing as I never know from day to day if it will be my last for the year. I usually call it to a halt when I have to take off my skis more than five times in an outing to walk over bare dirt.

Disclaimer: Even though I should have worn the right skis from the start, it was an easy mix-up. Both sets of skis are from the same time era in the early-to-mid 90's....Fischer skis with garish yellow tops and red graphics. It was an easy mistake. I'm not sure it beats the time about fifteen years ago though, when I drove 80 miles away to ski and discovered I had two different skating skis...waxed differently of course but I skied anyway!!! Sometimes those days are the most rewarding!