Født med ski på biena

The day finally has arrived. After missing two ski seasons I strapped on by boards and cruised around Birch Hill. Now Birch Hill isn't the best cross country ski area in the world, but for Fairbanks it is the top. The key to surviving in Fairbanks is all about lowering your expectations and laughing at the situation. The trails here are very windy, so much so that most turns are step turns. They even have a few padded light poles. That is a scary sight when you come around a corner and realize that enough people have run into a particular object that the groomers have taken the time to put padding on it. They are also very hilly, which is good for the legs and lungs. Not so good for the beginning skier. My favorite aspect about all the trails in Fairbanks is they have a very gentle up and down feel that has been created by years of snowmachine grooming. The trails in Anchorage are just flat as a pancake with their professional snowcat grooming machines. The crazy thing about skiing is that after the first two glides it all came back. The gliding, the frozen fingers, the cold air, and of course all those bad habits my ski coaches tried to break me of. I guess skiing is my version of riding a bike. It's something that I was born to do or as the Norwegians say, "Born with a ski on the foot."