Cross-Country Skiing

My favourite winter activity in retirement became cross-country skiing.  There's nothing like gliding quickly along the trails, the swish of the skiis in the snow providing music to my ears.  And here in Grey County we have excellent groomed ski trails in all directions.  My favourite was always the Glenelg trails, just west of Markdale.  Well maintained by a committed club, they roamed through 400 acres of hardwood forest, as well as assorted habitats on adjoining private land.  As a club member you could access it all.

The easiest trails, running partly through hardwoods and partly through planted conifers, was mostly flat and I really enjoyed it.  This is where I usually skiid when I was skiing alone.

After you went a mile or so you came out to the edge of an open field, just after crossing a snowmobile trail.  I loved this row of old maples.

At the farthest point I turned back and sought out the 'Long Piney Woods' trail.  There were three different trails you could take back, but this one gave me a long straight stretch to enjoy.

This was a very narrow trail, but it let you build up a good speed.

Flat at first, it eventually came to a short uphill stretch, hiding the end of the trail ahead.

Over that little hill and you were in the last stretch.  You couldn't afford to go too fast here as the trail comes to an abrupt end when you emerged from the trees.  And it's hard to turn quickly in cross-country skiis if you run into snow 8" deep!

Then you turn right and head back to the car, passing a long row of beehives the landowner kept for honey and you're done.  A great winter outing!

To pick up on Woody's comment from yesterday, there's relatively little 'skate-skiing' around here.  I had five different groomed trails like these that i could drive to, but only one set of trails groomed for skate-skiing.  Here, skating clearly means skating on ice wearing ice skates!