XC ski as much as possible this winter

We skiied today on the Mendota side of Fort Snelling State Park. It was good, but the tracks hadn’t been groomed so that made it a little hard. The breeze off the river took our breath away! Nice ski.

Enjoyed a 1 hr. ski Saturday at Lake Vadnais. The trail was good, not perfect like it would be during a snowfall or under fresh snow, but not icy, either. And even though it was an easy trail (tecnically, anyway), I huffed and puffed – and the return took 30 minutes to cover what had taken us 20 minutes to do going out. Nice wooded area that I imagine would really sparkle under a coating of fresh flakes like tonight. It’d be a really pretty ski.

Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. It was fun! We did a short, easy loop twice. It was my first time out there, and found out that all Thursdays are free in winter. Probably too far to go often, but worth the trip today. Got my form back and experimented with kicking up the skis. I’m not very good, but want to get better!! Only fell once. Enjoyable!

We thought we’d ski this weekend. Then it went from like 0 on Fri. morning to 40 on Sat. morning. Then it rained, destroying all the good snow and turning the entire metro into an icerink. Anyway, reminds you to seize the moment, because we could have gone on Thurs. or Fri. evening and didn’t. Crap.

but the snow was so sticky we turned around very quickly. Was very disappointing! But at least we got in the five times that we did have. I think considering my schedule and the bad timing and/or lack of good snow, we did pretty well at this.

We skiied really near my parents’ house at the new-ish Spirit River Nature Area in Cambridge. It’s not really new, though. The city has owned the land for years. I just have no idea how long it’s been groomed for skiing, because I only got into skiing after moving out of town. Beautiful, though, and very worth it. We will be visiting again.

in six weeks today! The track was kind of crappy, but the weather was warm and we had new, longer poles, so it was really enjoyable. I love skiing!

So now all our snow is junky. Poo.

so far. We have explored some new places and the other day we went for our longest jaunt ever. I got some Thule ski racks and they are slick – much nicer than having the skis in BF’s lap. I hope to get out many more times this winter, especially seeing as how the last two have been crappy skiing!