Skip the lift lines and glide on the trails
Let’s just say my first-ever Nordic race over three decades ago was a tad embarrassing. My wife, a former collegiate racer for the University of Montana, talked me into it. This was right when Bill Koch first brought skate skiing into the limelight. There wasn’t skate skiing gear at the time, just heavy telemark equipment — complete with leather boots and three-pin bindings — so I raced in that. I didn’t set any speed records, even after swallowing my pride and taking a shortcut or two.
Flash-forward 30-some years and I’m a Nordic convert. Of course, it helps when you live in a place like Steamboat Springs, which is home to more Olympians — many of them Nordic — than any other town in the country. But I love it for its versatility, exercise, and ease of entry. Simply gear up and go — no lift lines, expensive tickets, parking issues, or crowded slopes.
Choose from conventional classic cross-country where kick wax or fish scales let you stride and glide straight forward, or skate skiing, where you push off to the side herringbone style for propulsion. Classic lets you take to groomed trails or venture off-piste, while skate skiing restricts you to manicured trails.
I’ll go early in the year up on Rabbit Ears Pass, when Bruce’s Trail offers some of the earliest skate skiing in the country, and kick and glide on trails meandering across Rabbit Ears and Buff Pass. Local trails around town — as well as four different Nordic centers — offer escapes from crowded midwinter slopes, and then springtime serves up its own special category of “crust” skiing. That’s when you don’t need groomed trails at all; the diurnal freeze/thaw temperatures Zamboni meadows smooth and hard, letting you color outside the lines on a canvas where you can skate wherever your heart — and heart rate — takes you.
This ski season, forego those locked-down Alpine bindings and elbow-room-only resort slopes. Free your heel and free your mind by giving Nordic skiing a whirl, whether you’re out on your own or with friends and family. Skating or striding, that hot chocolate afterward will never taste better.
Eugene Buchanan is a former reporter for the Denver Business Journal and 14-year publisher and editor-in-chief of Paddler magazine. His freelance articles have been published in The New York Times, Men’s Journal, Outside, National Geographic Adventure, Forbes Life, and more.
Nordic Skiing Offerings to Get You Started
SUMMIT COUNTY
- Breckenridge Nordic Center offers 28 kilometers of groomed trails for all abilities, as well as rentals, lessons, and guided tours.
- Located at the Breckenridge Golf Course, the Gold Run Nordic Center offers 30 km of groomed ski trails and lets you bring your dog along — look for the dog symbol on the map.
- The Frisco Nordic Center offers 30 km of ski trails, with mountain vistas along Lake Dillon.
- The Keystone Nordic Center serves up 17 km of groomed trails and backs up to 40 km of White River National Forest backcountry trails.
- Accessed from the Frisco Nordic Center/Ball Field parking lots or Summit High School, the Winter Rec Path is a free, groomed path extending 12 km from Frisco to Breckenridge, with dogs allowed on a leash.
GRAND COUNTY
- Named the No. 1 Cross-Country Ski Resort in North America by USA Today, Devil’s Thumb Ranch near Winter Park offers 120 km of trails at the base of the Continental Divide, complete with lodging and fine dining.
- Snow Mountain Ranch / YMCA of the Rockies lets you glide on 82 km of groomed Nordic trails — including 40 km of pet-friendly trails — through pine forest and open meadows, with a variety of affordable lodging options and other activities.
BOULDER COUNTY
- The Eldora Nordic Center has 40 km of trails through old-growth forests and alpine meadows for classic skiing, skate skiing, and snowshoeing, plus rentals, instruction, and a retail store. But give yourself some time after eating that breakfast burrito as it’s a bit hilly.
