Skiing on Mt Hood: Part IV

Crunch crunch crunch was the sound of the chains on the snow, up the drive to the parking area and surprisingly few cars. I drive up to the hut and park, get out and walk over and in. A small single-wide trailer is all it is, a place to rent equipment more than anything. I go in and pay the $9 for the half day pass and pay the $10 for a lesson. I will have about an hour to kill so I put on my boots and get everything together. It is relatively warm and sunny, the snow is melting in the lot and big puddles are everywhere, there has been no new snow in a few weeks.

I put my skies on and get all set, I will ‘practice’ for a while before the lesson. I slide out and try not to fall in front of the shed, it would not look good. I make my way onto the trail, there are two forms of Nordic, the traditional and skate ski. I will traditional and that means using groves cut into the snow. Skate is more like ice skating and you can’t use the groves. I get going in the groves and seem to be doing OK, then the first little hill. Well more like a bump than a hill. Up and over, down and up the other side. Survived without falling, felt good.

Mt Hood from the North side, driving from Hood River.

Then the next ‘hill’, this time there was no down and up, just down. From here on it is down till the trail turns back up the hill. I stopped and waited for a few people to pass then I pushed off, faster, faster, turn??? No… Straight into the snow-bank and face-first in the snow, no turn or anything, mostly no control. I get back up and make my way back up the hill and headed back to the hut, lesson time.

The lesson was held in front of the hut and there where two small kids and a teenager along with me, two instructors so it was broken into age groups. After a few minutes talk about how to stand, put on and take off skies, walk up hill, we headed for the trail I was just on. We went up and back a short distance and worked on how to slide our feet. The instructor decided that we should go to another area so we went back and waited for a shuttle to drive us. Turned out we could have walked there faster so it was a waste to ride the bus. But the area was wide open and we could practice on a flat ground.

My biggest problem was stopping on a hill, I kept plowing but I just never could slow down and I ended up falling a few times. The lesson ended and we headed back to the hut, skiing this time and I worked a little longer on the things covered in the lesson. Back at the hut, I changed and dumped my stuff in the car then looked around. It was a nice day and I didn’t know why more people hadn’t come up. Oh well, time to head home and I had a few hours drive ahead.