cross country skiing

Cross country skiing: oh my goodness. many points to be made:

1) WORK OUT OF MY LIFE. i am such a weakling and must improve.

2) such beautiful scenery that you get to appreciate in complete silence and solitude--> no kiddies crashing in front of you here!

3) easy! i mean, will slice pounds off of you every time you insert your foot into the oh-so-comfortable shoe, but the technique is very simple for basic cross country. 

4) cheap: renting the gear is $15 a day, and some of the routes are $15 per day, but most are free. this is compared to the $30 of skis and the $92 day pass for alpine skiing here (thank GOODNESS i can get free passes, this whole trip would have been unfeasible if not!). 

5) practical: your skis weigh nothing at all, and again, the shoes are normal shoes that you can run around in. you have to wear close to no clothing because you work up such a sweat, and it is very difficult to injure yourself.

it's a completely different sport, though. you wouldn't go cross country for any of the reasons you would go alpine, besides for something to do with a lot of snow on the ground. cross country is about the aerobic exercise while slowly enjoying the beautiful, remote and abandoned surroundings on relatively flat lands. alpine is about the adrenaline, the thrill, how steep can you go, how much can it burn, how much can you pull off without injury. 

the scenery is absolutely stunning. the entire area of French Gulch is not accessible by car in the winter (ie if something goes wrong, you gotta hope you're on God's good side!), and the ungroomed roads are the paths for xc or snowshoeing. the path is dotted with beautiful cabins and log homes that are reached by snowmobile from the road in winter, which i can only imagine makes for some pretty interesting major grocery shopping trips. but the perfect stillness of the colorado outback coated in pristine snow must be pretty darn worth it. absolute silence. impeccable white. massive sloping mountains ahead. every so often, a remote trace of wildlife (the mobile players, like elk or deer head to lower altitudes in winter, and the bears are sleeping, but wolves, coyote and moose are common sighting on the trails). fellow xc skiiers on the trails salute and thank the person that went ahead for breaking trail, and many bring their dogs and children (same category) along. a really great experience, to be repeated hopefully this week!