Breaking trail through knee-deep snow a couple of weeks ago, my son Tom and I shuffled uphill on cross-country skis in a silent winter wonderland of glittering white.
“You know, deep powder is way overrated,” I panted.
We thought we had the woods to ourselves – after all, how many people would be skiing up Lantern Hill on the Ledyard/North Stonington border, over little-used trails from the old silica mine to the south, only hours after one of the biggest storms in decades finished dumping up to 2 feet of snow across southeastern Connecticut?
“Hey, look,” Tom called out. “Tracks.”
Sure enough, someone had beaten us to the punch.
They were boot prints, not ski tracks, leading from a different network of trails, which meant someone had trudged a few miles from who-knows-where – but why? A few minutes later we had our answer.
The tracks led to a steep drop-off, where they were replaced by a smooth chute of packed snow about a hundred yards long. Our mystery hiker had slogged all this way to go sledding.
“Now that’s someone who takes his sledding seriously,” I said.
We never did see this person, but I tip my balaclava to him or her.
Tempted as we were to slide down the makeshift bobsled run, Tom and I plowed ahead.
A small flock of finches flitted by, feeding on the seeds of tall grasses that poked through drifts.
“Tough way to survive,” I said. The temperature hovered in the teens and a north wind made it seem even colder. Like the birds, we had to keep moving.
We knew, of course, there was no way we could ski all the way up the steep, rocky summit – well, maybe we could, but there definitely was no way I would ski back down a 45-degree, heavily wooded slope filled with giant boulders. Eventually, at the base of the steepest section we halted.
It only took us a moment to decide to take off our skis and continue climbing on foot.
If you’ve never tried hiking up a steep hill in deep snow with cross-country ski boots, I would say you’re not missing anything. We slipped and postholed, and I tipped over a few times, before we finally struggled to the top.
We gazed south from the overlook at an expanse of white that extended all the way to Fishers Island Sound 10 miles away. Beyond to the southeast, Block Island barely protruded above the horizon. To our west the sun dipped below the trees – time to head back down.
I thought of this brief sojourn in unbroken snow last week when we were cross-country skiing on the magnificently groomed tracks of the Jackson Ski Touring Center in Jackson, N.H. The Jackson Ski Touring Foundation maintains more than 90 miles of trails that are considered the finest in the Eastern United States.
I woke one morning at 5 to watch the crews head out in the dark in their giant grooming machines, smoothing and packing a wide swath of snow. In the “old” day, say 10 years ago, groomers only had to lay down a double track for Nordic-style skiing, but now that so many people prefer skate skiing they have to add an adjoining smooth, wide path. Of course the snowshoers would ruin this, so there has to be another track for them.
I’m not complaining. I loved gliding along on smooth trails, waving and smiling at fellow schussers passing in the opposite direction. (Oh yes, I forgot to mention that you need two sets of tracks to accommodate out and return routes, except on trails that are marked one-way).
You can cover a lot more distance on groomed trails and don’t have to worry as much about snow getting into your boots, even with gaiters, or about stumbling over hidden rocks, falling into streams, tripping over buried branches, or simply running out of steam from all that trail-breaking.
So I’m not knocking groomed conditions – but to paraphrase Robert Frost, every so often I prefer the trail not taken.