Viewing logs in Cross country skiing!

We had wanted to do a ski tour but the weather up at Julierpass was awful so we spent a lovely afternoon XC Skiing in Val Roseg from Pontresina. We actually ended up doing laps on the first couple of km of trail because we had forgotten to pay for parking! There was fresh snow on the tracks and the weather was magically much better just in that valley :-) Beautiful. It snowed on our ski back, big floaty flakes that make you feel like you're in a postcard :-)

Strong winds up high with loads of fresh snow fall yesterday meant it was too dangerous to do a skitour today, and the pistes were to be crowded with Milanesi, and Val di Lei closed due to high winds, so Jeff and I headed to Maloja for a day of XC skiing. Really lovely day. We went up as far as possible in Valle del Forno, but turned around shortly after the trail stopped being packed because we would have had to go too close to the base of a dodgy looking slope, especially after hearing the whoompf of snow pack collapsing somewhere nearby. %-( We then took the trails past maloja to the lake and along that for a while. Tired legs at the end of it all. Happy days...

Thought I'd spend some of my free time skiing through the recent powdery precipitation but soon found out why I was the only one there: it was damn cold and windy! Also the snow drifts buried the recently-groomed tracks. About 60 seconds in I was ready to turn back but decided to push on. After a mild interval of suffering, the wind stopped and it actually got kinda nice out (nice for Wisconsin). I ended up skiing twice as far as I planned because I was having so much fun and got some good practice skiing outside of tracks. Now I have an excuse to skip the bike trainer tonight! Too bad it's back to negative 30 F soon...

Caught the sun for a little ski romp through the woods. Learning to cross country ski is a lot like learning to mountain bike- going up burns and going down (or even on flat surfaces) results in crashes! BUT that random "moment of clarity" that fools you into thinking you know what you are doing makes it all worth it. It's good to be back at the bottom of a learning curve... Sore tonight!

Headed up after work for an afternoon of XC skiing at Maloja. Parked at Maloja and skied around the Sils Lake as far as Sils itself. Continues on past it for a bit and then returned to the car on the " marathon" tracks that run right across the frozen and snow covered lake. Quite amazing. To think last Summer we were bathing our feet in the lake. It's really beautiful right now :-) Snow conditions: The groomed parts for skating were great but the tracks for classic XC on the lake were icy so I stayed out of them. Lovely afternoon. Tired hip flexors...

Great first day out on the xc skis up in Val Roseg (left the car in Pontresina, just past St. Moritz). Sarah, Gina and I. It was Sarah's first time on xc skis which made for some fun and laughs. She did great for her first time out and the weather couldn't have been better, not too cold and no wind.

The first day XC Skiing of this season. Sarah came for her first time and did really well :-) We started up at Pontresina (1hr from Chiavenna), and skied the 7 km along the Val Roseg valley floor. Really beautiful trail. Groomed, running alongside a river going in and out of snow covered pine forest. A real winter wonderland! We took our time for Sarah's sake and had a really great day :-)