Skiing the park’s many trails
Flatlander, Skullbuster, Bear Path and Heron Marsh are trail names simple to decode; tougher to unscramble are Phaneuf and Timinator. Our cross-country ski centers might dub their byways for terrain or wildlife habitat, or to salute hometown Olympians who early on took to the boards with them.
Their layouts are as condensed as 6 kilometers overall or as sprawling as 55 kilometers, with trails ranging from up-down, woodsy scoots to graded competition boulevards. XC trails may or may not be rated for skiing ability, but there are plenty of choices at all skill levels.
We have nine cross country centers inside the Blue Line—five up north in the Trilakes, with four more central, south, and west. None fall in the more “snow-shadowed” east. All rent equipment and offer instruction, and provide for snowshoers, and all but one rely on natural snowfall.
Let’s get back to aptly named Skullbuster on an early morning last March. The trail was beautifully groomed and corduroyed, still frozen solid, a glazed carpet lacking all purchase, on the shaded northwest of a ridge; it’s replete with a side drop-off into a pond on the left! We snowplowed with all our might,
