Cross Country Skiing at High Point in New Jersey
As you probably may have guessed given my general dislike of damp socks and broken bones, I'm not the best cross country skier on the planet. Not the worst... It would take a lot of effort to be the worst when you've been skiing for thirty years. But a vast and unfathomable distance from the best.
I know this for a fact because we have skied up in Craftsbury VT on the same trails as the US Olympic biathlon team. They pass us so fast you sort of wonder if you imagined it. They also travel with such beautiful grace. It's like they are floating above the snow. Unlike some of us who are unmistakably on the snow and occasionally in the snow.
But forget all that for now. In the vicinity of High Point, NJ, Tom and I are gold-medal contenders. The odds would be heavily in our favor should any sort of cross-country skiing contest ensue. I probably don't even mean a contest of speed or distance. I probably just mean a contest to see who can stand up in their skis without falling over and taking out three innocent bystanders.
At the bottom of any slight grade on the High Point trails, there's a pile of squirming bodies with sharp poles and ski tips sticking out in all directions. It resembles a giant corona virus molecule, or a Keystone Cops film. Skiing down any hill feels kind of like a giant slalom except instead of flags, you ski around flailing crash zones.
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| The fallen on a cross Country ski trail. |
Don't get me wrong, I'm not truly complaining. High Point doesn't really have very many trails. There aren't any hills nicknamed "Skull Crusher" or "Eleanor's Cliff" and there's no hairpin turns. So, in an honest moment, I'd admit that the quantity of human detritus littering the trail in wholly unexpected places-- it adds a non-boring twist. You have to be prepared at all times to ski on one foot while ducking under a tree branch to avoid becoming part of a pile up.
This all being said, do allow me a moment to lay down some cross country skiing facts for everyone who decided that a pandemic might be a great time to put on cross country skis for the first time. By this, I mean 99% of the people skiing at High Point. Please know that I'm speaking from a place of genuine grumpiness because I want you to learn to cross country ski. It is hella fun and I want you to learn and to enjoy it as much as I do.
I just don't want you to wreck it for everybody else.
Things You Need to Know if You Plan on Cross Country Skiing at High Point.
Or Anywhere that I am also Skiing:
- OMG. Do *not* take off your skis and walk on the trail. Or worse, walk on the trackset. I'm sure those who do this do it out of pure naiveté which the High Point staff does nothing to ameliorate... but just, no.
This is like the worst sin of cross country skiing and if you did it anywhere else besides High Point you'd likely get poked in the ass by passing ski poles while multiple people yell at you.
Let me just run through the timeline of unfortunate consequences when someone, let's call her Jane, goes tromping down a cross country ski trail in boots:
1) Jane leaves footprints.
2) These footprints melt.
3) Some noobie skis by and their ski tip falls into the footprint hole and they crash. Maybe it's you the next time you go around the loop. Ski trails peppered with footprints are actually very hard to ski on. So by trying to make it easier on herself by walking, Jane actually made it harder for herself and everybody else to learn to ski.
4) The footprints melt enough that a rock is exposed, or a stick or tree root.
5) Someone skis by and scratches the bottom of their skis on the rock or branch Jane's footprint exposed. (Otherwise known as ruining their skis. Walked-on ski trails trash skis.)
6) Someone else skis by, and one ski comes to an abrupt halt as it hits the rock or stick or root and they do an impressive face plant and break their wrist.
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