We went on our first family cross country ski trip a few weeks ago. Everyone was excited to get out and give this a try for different reasons. Aaron (3) had been wearing his cross country skis around the house several times for what I like to call basic training. He had learned how to shuffle forward and how to turnaround without stepping on his skis. Aaron had sat next to me on the couch watching ski racing and action skiing movies, but had never used them in the snow himself. When we had packed everything up he knew that we were not going to be skiing on the carpet that day. Patrick (8) has been enjoying alpine skiing for several years now, but always has trouble in the flats and slight uphill sections you can encounter in ski resorts. The idea that these skis we were taking out would grip the snow and carry him forward on the flats and hills was a new dimension to what was to this point a downhill only sport. Beth had been skiing once in her life (alpine) as a teenager and apparently it didn’t go well. This was her chance to see if there was something more to skiing than pain and minor suffering. And for me, this was my chance to introduce my family to yet another outdoor activity which I enjoy.
For our first outing I wanted to find a location which was mostly flat, had easy access to facilities, and didn’t take too long to get to. The solution was the Summit Trail on Mt. Hood. This trail runs through the Mt. Hood Skibowl resort on the south side of Government Camp. If you access the trail from the Skibowl East parking lot you can choose to take the trail to either the east or the west. The western section is a nice path through the woods with moderate hills and turns. The eastern side is really just a wide snow covered forest road. For our first time out as a family learning how to ski together, this is just what I wanted.
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Before heading out on the trail we spent some time just tromping around and learning how to operate our ski setups. The kids both had Karhu Kboom skis with Aaron (35lbs) using the 70cm and Patrick (55lbs) using the 85cm skis. These attached securely to their snow boots and worked very well for learning what this cross country ski thing was all about. Patrick figured out how to get around quickly. Aaron needed some more trial and error, but was insistent on doing it himself. The one time I tried to hold his hand to help him balance, I got a scolding by him that a nun would have been proud of. Beth found her balance on the skis and after we had been practicing for about 30 minutes, she asked if we were ready to go. She was ready to hit the trail.
We started out with everyone on skis but it quickly became apparent that Aaron was going to need to hitch a ride if we were going to make any distance at all. We loaded him up on the sled I was towing and headed out at a comfortable pace. The noise of the ski resort and road was quickly muffled by the surrounding snow. We saw a few other cross country skiers and snowshoers, but mostly we had the trail to our selves. We had a lunch stop where the kids got to explore a little and then continued on a bit more before taking the trail back to Mt. Hood Skibowl. We had only covered about 1.5 miles, but everyone enjoyed the outing.
A few weeks later we finally got a dusting of snow down in the valley. Aaron looked out the window and announced, “Snow!”. He then dashed off to the back room of the house only to return with his Kboom skis.
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