and make it what YOU want. It might not all come together for you over night, but it will happen if you work at it, or you could be one of the lucky ones who are naturals, and it will all just come to you with ease.

The best place to learn this sport is at a Cross Country Ski Center, and one that does quality grooming, which means preparing the snow for skiing, one with lots of beginner terrain that is easy to get to, and one that is easy to navigate, has a shop with lots of info to help you get started, with trails that have understandable signage, and a friendly staff that lessens your anxiety, which we all have when trying something new. At Norsk we are lucky to have all of this going for us, and we have some great people working here who are also fantastic ski educators, and whom are here to help you learn the sport. The place you learn, the people who teach you, and their attitude, can be the difference between you learning the sport and having fun, or you never wanting to do it again. We have all had experiences in which we expected to learn something wonderful only to be sorely disappointed. Our goal is to be flexible enough to make this sport your favorite thing to do each winter. We hope that Norsk will be one of your favorite places to participate in it.

We promise to do everything we can to make skiing fun for you. What we need from you is honesty, openness, and patience. Honesty means several things: Tell us how fit you are, so we can tailor the lesson to your abilities. As the lesson progresses and if you feel that you are not keeping up with the lesson, tell the instructor. Be open to new ideas, and communicate how you feel and how you are doing. Remember this is a new experience, but one you have chosen to undertake, so relax and take some time to take this all in. We need your help and active participation to reach your goals and ours.

There are exercises that you can do that will help you when you come for a ski lesson. It starts by taking a walk. A good long walk is great exercise. If you have ski poles take them with you. Walk along swinging your arms just as you do when walking normally. Use those poles for a little more push when you are on the hills, and flats, and for help with balance on the down hills.

Swimming is a good exercise for skiers. The crawl or freestyle incorporates similar arm and leg motions to cross country skiing. Swimming is good for the heart and for the muscles, and like Cross Country Skiing and Rowing, it is a whole body sport, using arms, legs, back, etc. If there is one drawback it is that your weight is supported by the water, and not your muscular - skeletal system. Weight baring is important for building and maintaining bone density. Many skiers like running and hiking in the off season, because they use similar postures to skiing. What swimming does have is glide and flow, just like skiing.

Don't jump into exercise with both feet from a stand still. Seeing a doctor is often a good idea before starting any exercise regime. Even if you are a fit person taking up cross country skiing as a new sport; take your time, and ease into things. If you over do it you will end up sore and frustrated. Skiing used to be billed as being, "as easy as walking". It can be, but its not that simple. There are dips and bumps, and hills, etc. on the trails. The weather changes, and the trails and tracks change from shady spots, to areas where the sun is hitting the ground. That's what makes this fun. Its not a health club with the loud noise, stale air, and fluorescent lights. Snow isn't a carpet, so it makes it fun to master the changes underfoot. The surface and surroundings change, and the air is fresh. The weather is always changing. After all it is New England, so as they say, just wait a minute and it will change. That's why I live here; the seasons, the fresh air, the challenge. Cross Country Skiing is the perfect sport for the true New Englander. It reflects the nature of the region, and the temperament of the people, and gives purpose to a needed winter's day in the fresh air.

Dressing: Clothing is important, and can make or break your day. If your cold or too warm it will make your day less fun. Dress in layers with Poly Propylene or wool close to your ski in the form of underwear and long underwear. Then ad a polyester fleece on top or a sweater of wool or polyester. Never wear cotton. It holds water, and makes you cold, which if there is an emergency can lead to hypothermia, and serious danger. Fleece pants or lycra tights with insulating properties can be a good intermediate layer for the legs. Then add a shell on top and bottom, made from nylon; with or without waterproofing. The other layers keep you warm by insulating your body, and this layer keeps the wind out. Both keep you from loosing heat into the winter environment. The best shells are breathable, so you don't get wet and cold. They keep rain and snow out, and allow for sweat to get out. Poly or wool socks are great to wear. With modern boots you don't need lots of bulk for warmth, but a thin to moderate weight sock works well, and wicks moisture away from you, thus keeping you warm. A good hat or headband that provides warmth and wicks away moisture is excellent. Don't allow this to make you too warm. There are few sensations as uncomfortable as frozen sweat around your hat and collar. It can lead to frozen skin if stop for a long time on a cold day. There is a such thing as being too cold when outdoors in the winter. If you plan to stop on the trail bring some warm-dry clothes to change into. Its also a good practice to put on warm clothes at the end of the ski day too.It keep the chill out. Gloves have to be sport specific, so they don't fall apart, and these gloves should fit the conditions. Thick gloves or mitts for the cold days, and thin ones for those warm days. Again they will get wet, but good one stay warm even when wet. Fingers, toes, ears, noses, and cheeks are important to keep warm, because those are the places where frost bit it most possible. In 5 years we have only seen a few cases of minor frost bite. Use Dermatone on exposed skin to keep it from freezing on those bitter cold days, and your chances of frost bite or nip are greatly reduced.

Technique: I am a huge believer that the individual decides what is good skiing. If it works for you: great! The thing that will teach you whether or not you are skiing well is your ability to glide along like other skiers, and your ability to negotiate the hills both up and down. Now people write lots of stuff about how to ski, but unless you are experienced or trained to ski well, chances are you are going to spend a lot of time at trial and error, just to come up with ways of doing things that aren't very good, and that it will take an instructor a long time to change, in your skiing. They say practice makes perfect, but that's only if you are doing everything perfect to begin with. There are many things that all good skiers have in common, and we call the different variations: styles. What you do is important, such as diagonal Stride, or the double pole, but how you do these things is what can make your skiing experience exceptional.

SNOW TYPES:

If your going to ski its important to know certain terms. Some of the most important are the terms used to describe snow. There are languages with hundreds of words to describe snow, but to be conversant in what a ski report is telling you there are only a few that you need to know. If you know what a ski report is saying then you have a much better chance of being prepared for what the ski trails have on them, and knowing how to deal with it in terms of equipment, wax, technique, and ultimately if you are ready to tackle what you are about to face if you head out on the trails. Also, if you know what the report says, and you get to an area and they have either made a mistake due to changing conditions, or out-right deceived you to get you there; you sound a lot more formidable and authoritative if you know your stuff.

In some languages there are hundreds of words to describe snow. For the purposes of reporting snow conditions we use just a few, and this is what we mean when we use them.

FRESH: Snow that hasn't changed since it hit the ground, or that has been groomed only slightly. It is light to moderate in weight and density, and has sharpe edges to its crystals, which can slow skis when very cold, but make grip waxes easy to find, and a pleasure to ski on. POWDER is in this category. We call snow powder when it falls when it is cold. There is so much sharpe crystal shape to powder that the snow is more air then water, and if you scoop up a palm full and blow on it, it blows away like powder. WET snow can also be fresh, but as opposed to Powder it comes down when the atmosphere can barely freeze it. It can even mix with and look like hail.

TRANSFORMED: Snow that has been groomed a few times, or that has weathered for a day or 2, and now has very slightly rounded crystals. This is still good stuff to ski on, and hard kick waxes are used still. This is what we ski on almost all the time in a good winter. Snow can be transformed or changed by many elements: Grooming, Temperature, Humidity, Wind, Sun, Ground water or heat, skier traffic, dirt or pollution are among the most important.

GRANULAR: The snow now has been around, and is like little pellets. This is often called sugar snow, because it has the consistency of white-granular sugar. We get this with long cold spells when there hasn't been fresh snow for awhile, or with continued warming and cooling over a series of days. Often this snow is a loose layer that is dense, and holds up well after being groomed, if there is time for it to set-up before its skied on. This is often great snow for nowax skis, and for skating, because it is a little faster, a little firmer under foot, but it can cause traditional skiers to get out their Klister waxes the soft goo from a tube, if they aren't proficient with technique or have skis that are a little too stiff for their weight.

CORN: The big pellets of snow that we get in the spring. The snow has frozen and thawed many times, and now it freezes sold at night, and loosens during the day. This calls for klister or no wax skis, but at the right time of day it can give you the best skiing you will ever have.

ICE: Water that has frozen. The crystals are gone, and the surface is one frozen sheet. The right grooming machines such as tillers, scarifiers, and powdermakers can turn this into a granular type snow given enough time, patience, and base depth to grind it up

WET SNOW: Fresh or transformed snow that has been warmed and wetted from sun, high temps, or rain.

DRY or BARE SPOTS: Places on the trails where the ground is showing through, and the snow is gone in that place.

OLD SNOW: Anything that has been around for a few days, and is not yet corn snow.

There are few times that a trail will have only one type of snow on it. Trails wind through trees, fields, near water, over wet areas, face north, face south, and generally have different elements conspiring to transform its snow at various rates. Late spring when everything is corn and the temps are hot, during a long snowless cold spell, and right after a big snowfall are the 2 times that you might ski an area and be on the same snow surface the whole time.