<...> I had already forsaken snow sports. The reasons weren’t
because I didn’t love winter or I had an aversion to carving turns
in fresh powder. Forgive my condescending attitude, but mostly it
was because I loathed being trapped with the hordes of people common
to ski resorts, herded along the lift lines like cattle, and then
chauffeured up the mountain with the rest of the weekend warriors.

The resort experience was so incongruous with who I was and how
I lived my life that I just stopped buying an annual pass and
instead focused on other activities.

The problem, however, was that I genuinely missed playing in the
snow and felt at odds with living at Lake Tahoe because I wasn’t
fully embracing the mountain lifestyle.

Life has a way of surprising us when we’re not paying attention,
so I found it interesting that I wound up working at a cross-country
ski center in north Lake Tahoe during the last drought winter.
This wasn’t by design, but I kept an open mind and quickly
discovered that cross-country skiing was the answer to my dilemma.

The independence and autonomy inherent with cross-country skiing
resonated with me, and the fact that it’s an endurance rather than
gravity-based sport sealed the deal.

That winter’s snowpack was so low that I only managed to ski about
a dozen times, but that was all it took for me to catch the fever.

Here is a good resource for folks interested in getting into
cross-country/backcountry skiing, by the ski resort employee who
spends a fair amount of time on snow. Sort of, "all you wanted
to know about cross-country skiing but were afraid to ask".

https://tahoetrailguide.com/tag/cross-country-skiing-explained/

This guide, or "head up" deals a lot with backcountry excursions,
which, in my opinion, is the major redeeming factor in the XC skiing
(however you might be made of different stuff).

Current Music: Dawn - Slaughtersun
Tags: active, backcountry

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