Category Archives: Outdoors

Recreation

Lunch with a View

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It’s all in the perspective.  I had lunch with a friend recently.  It had been a couple years since we’d gotten together, and in the meantime she has fallen in love with the North Shore.  While she had always been a year-round runner, and did some cross-country skiing, she didn’t consider herself an outdoors person.  But that has changed!  I was amazed to hear her excitement over camping in the early spring and late fall, hiking the trails and staying in a remote cabin mid-winter.  She’s already anxious to get up there again.

It made me reflect on my own love affair with the North Shore.  Some of my earliest memories include picnicking on “The Rocks” and dipping our toes into the chilly water.  My family’s interaction with the shore was more limited to car trips to visit parks or ski at Lutsen.  It took my high school girlfriend to introduce me to camping at Gooseberry Falls before I really engaged with the outdoors.  But that was a wonderful beginning.  From there, I embraced hiking, backpacking, canoeing and cross-country skiing.  I learned to get closer to nature and experience the shore first-hand.  I expanded the seasons for my visits and discovered the many different faces of Lake Superior’s shoreline during the freezing months.

Hearing my friend’s enthusiasm made me realize what a rich cache of experiences I have with the North Shore.  We are so fortunate to have this rich wilderness area right in our back yard.  Sometimes it takes hearing it from someone else’s point of view to help us remember that.

 

Classic or Skate Ski?

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To me, they are two different sports.

Classic is for the woods, preferably on the North Shore.  Narrow trails, lined with trees whose branches are heavily laden with snow.  Out in the middle of nowhere, with no sounds other than the swish of my skis and the plant of my poles.  This is where I can lose myself in my thoughts, as the rhythm of my movements propels me along the trail.  I can explore all sorts of topics in my mind and still take in the beauty of nature around me.  Classic skiing is good for sharing time outdoors with others.  It’s not about the speed or the distance, it’s about enjoying winter, the snow and the scenery.  Classic is for the woods.

Skate skiing is a workout!  It’s great exercise and there is constantly room for improvement.  Better hill climbing, mastering V-2 technique, tucking on the downhills, cornering effectively, powering my poles with my abs.  There is so much to get right, and it feels so good in those occasional periods when it all comes together.  It’s also my chosen technique for ski races.  I’m an endurance person, so it’s the long distance ski races that appeal to me.  And skate skiing is my chosen option for completing 35 to 50k in a race.  Skate skiing is a workout!

It’s not a bad thing to view them so differently.  One sport, two vastly different experiences.  I rather like that!

You’re moving where?

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At a time of life when most people are looking to go south for the winter, our chosen direction is a bit unusual…  Up North.  Rather than flee winter’s cold and snow, we embrace it.  It’s no accident that our new home in Duluth is right across from the Lester/Amity ski trails.  What better way to start a sparkling, sunny winter morning than striding or skating along the trails?  And at the finish, a mug of steaming hot chocolate is only a short walk away.

This snow-starved winter, our backyard trails were sadly of no use.  But Duluth was still a great starting point in our quest for snowy trails.  Weekends found us driving up the shore, where the Onion River Road became a staple for our ski workouts, and later on the After Hours trails in Brule, WI garnished enough snow for good ski conditions.  Many thanks and kudos to those who carefully tended those trails to keep them skiable for the winter enthusiasts like us!