Nordic Nebraska
Snow day! Two of the loveliest words in the English language.
But after a leisurely breakfast while listening to NPR, and a few hours loafing and reading in front of the fireplace, I start to get restless. The snow has stopped falling, the plows have opened the main roads. Time for some skiing. Skiing? Yes, skiing. No, not that high-altitude Rocky Mountain-type alpine skiing, with big crowds, long lines and expensive lift tickets, but good old flatlander-style Nordic cross-country skiing, with no lines to wait in and no lift tickets to buy. And no 10-hour-drive to the slopes, either.
Some days, in fact, I’ve skied right off my porch.
The Lincoln, Neb., area is pretty ideal for cross-country. Most winters have skiable snow for at least a few weeks, and some winters have decent snow for several months at a time. Our gently rolling terrain might not be suitable for downhill skiing, but it’s ideal for casual cross-country. Given how much Nordic blood flows through the veins of the local population, it’s surprising Nordic skiing isn’t more common. But I can tell from the many perplexed looks I get as I ski through local parks that most Nebraskans don’t think of this as ski country.
During the holiday season, what with the deadly combination of Yuletide fare, somnolent afternoons and limited chance to exercise, most of us are prone to putting on an excess pound or 10. Those pounds came in handy back in the Pleistocene, but we’ve softened up since those good old days, and now those pounds can add up to a quick trip to the coronary care unit. But when the air’s too frigid and the roads too icy to bicycle, and when jogging black-ice-coated sidewalks in yaktraks seems a tad too risky even for jogging fanatics, cross-country skiing is an ideal way to keep in shape. It’s probably the best aerobic workout there is, and a great way to flush out those rapidly clogging coronary arteries.
Almost any public open space can serve as a cross-country course. Even neighborhood parks can be great for a quick spin or beginner’s practice.
Holmes Lake in Lincoln is an ideal location, especially if you have kids who want to go sledding. I often leave my boys at the top of the sledding hill and slip away, gliding diagonally down the long decline of the dam, adjusting my angle of descent to a fun but—with any luck—manageable speed. Safely down the hill, I set off for a quiet loop around the southern end of the lake, skirting the now-abandoned golf course. (In fact golf courses make ideal skiing terrain, and if I were a golf course manager in this area, I’d investigate the possibility of opening up my course to cross-country skiing. A trail could be easily marked and groomed, and the clubhouse could be opened. It would be lovely to return from a few hours skiing to a roaring blaze and a menu of winter refreshments and libations.)
Early in the winter season, I usually ski across the bridge, but when the ice is thick, it’s easy, and a tad more thrilling, to venture across the lake. With the long skis to distribute weight, you’re actually a lot safer than the guys standing around ice fishing. In an hour or so I’m back at the sledding area, worn out. And after they’ve trudged up the sledding hill 30 or 40 times, the boys are usually ready to head home, too.
Another area that offers both sledding and skiing is Pioneers Park in Lincoln. It’s simple to leave the kids at the sledding hill and ski around for an hour or two. Based on all the tracks I see, it’s obvious most folk head east, casually descending through meadows and pines toward the goose ponds. More excitement is available, however, in the other direction. For thrill-seekers who think cross-country skiing is too calm, trust me, a zip down the sledding hill on long skinny cross-country skis can be as exciting and life-risking an adrenaline rush as any black diamond plummet in Colorado. Then, finding yourself at the bottom and still alive, you can ski back up and do it again.
But sometimes I like to leave the rowdy sledding hill behind and wander off through the wilder, less visited parts of the park. In the native prairie sections, lovely patterns of grasses stand out in stark relief against the white snow. Deer frolic on the nearby golf course. Bare trees make intricate silhouettes against the graying evening sky. Beauty is where you find it.
Lots of other places are good for skiing, too, including most of the state parks, and some folks even try the trails at Spring Creek Prairie Audubon Center.
But my favorite area to cross-country ski around Lincoln is definitely Wilderness Park. The extensive trail network is nearly all suitable for skiing. The flat trails lack the hills that can add variety to an outing, but the views of the winter forest more than make up for the lack of slopes.
The woods looks so different in the winter. The branches of the massive bur oaks stretch ominously across the sky. A few coral berries linger reddish in the brown and white fields. And everywhere you look, animal tracks: deer, raccoon, rabbit, squirrel, fox, coyote. Where are they all hiding? In summer you’d never guess so many animals were around. Now, their tracks are everywhere.
And not all the birds have flown south. If you’ve ever tried to identify yellow and green warblers high in the equally yellow and green foliage of the lush June forest, then you can appreciate the ease of bird-watching in winter. The trees have graciously shed their leaves, giving you a good view. And most of the winter birds are distinctive and easily recognized. I especially like the different sorts of woodpeckers that winter over in Wilderness Park: northern flickers, as well as red-bellied, hairy and downy woodpeckers are common. Odd as it might seem on a frigid day, chickadees and juncos have come from even farther north to spend the winter in this relatively warmer clime. It might be -8 outside today, but this is the balmy South to them.
A bird we take too much for granted that flits about Wilderness Park in the winter is the cardinal. The male’s brilliant scarlet plumage amid the whites and grays of the winter woods makes him seem like a creature from Technicolor Oz that returned with Dorothy back to monochrome Kansas. His stunning plumage among the drab colors of his habitat must make him an easy mark for predators, but the ladies like his dapper scarlet, and he wouldn’t be the first male to risk life and limb to impress a female. As I recall, Darwin had something to say about this.
There are few better ways to spend a winter day than to glide quietly through the bare but not barren woods, no sound but the shhhrrring as your skis cross crusts of snow crystals as you slip on down the trail.
Compared to downhill skiing, cross-country skiing is cheap. And the skis can be a lifetime investment. I bought my first set of skis in the mid-1970s. And still have them. The skis are wood, which means they do need to be waxed. Waxing these old-fashioned skis is one of the great rituals of wintertime, and when you get the right wax matched to the snow conditions, you glide faster downhill while also magically gripping better on the uphills. Matching the right color wax to the right temperature and texture of the snow can make you feel smugly competent, too. But it’s also a lot of trouble. And when you get the wax wrong, or the snow conditions change, you either slip all over or snow clings to the bottom of your skis and you’re reduced to trudging in what amount to ungainly long snowshoes.
So when my wife upgraded her skis, I gladly claimed as hand-me-downs her old fiberglass ones that don’t require wax. I knew I was risking my waxing credentials when I did so, and sad to say, I rarely use my wooden skis any more. The convenience of no-wax skis is just too darn seductive. I still use my original 30-plus-year-old leather shoes, though, and I still use my original ski poles, made of that space-age, high-tech material: bamboo. True, one of the poles is wrapped in duct tape, but it still gets me down the trail. And at my age I feel like I’ve got a few parts of my own that ought to be shored up in duct tape, too. Whatever it takes to get me down the trail.
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