Night Skiing

Ever tried cross country skiing?

Ever tried cross country skiing at night?

Our local ski club hosts a weekly guided night ski.  They start at about 5K early in the season and work their way up touring the loops to go longer distances each week.  For the past two seasons, I've been meaning to try it, but never got around to it.  This week, I made the commitment to do it.  Even better, I followed through.

I am so, so glad I did.  Tonight's loop was only 5.5K, and then a few of us did another 1K (I would guess) around the lit track.  There were about 17 in the original group of mixed level skiiers.  It was snowing quite heavily at the start which was really pretty in the head lamp going uphill and along the flat bits, but stung the eyes on the down hills!

It is supposed to get really cold tonight (-20C, -4F), but was the perfect temperature for the ski at -5C (23F).  I had on a double layer on top and bottom, plus my running jacket, toque, buff and ski gloves.  I was definitely chilly while waiting for the group to assemble, but was dressed perfectly once we started moving.  There is nothing worse than being overheated!

All of the headlamps looked so neat coming around each bend in the dark.  I always liked seeing this with our running group when we ran at night in the winter, but it looked even better on the snowy trails.

I skied this same loop on New Year's Day, but it seemed to go much faster in the dark.  I'm not sure if that was because we were actually going faster or if it was just the mystery of not knowing how long each up hill was!

I am so lucky to have such a great trail network only 15 minutes away.  I will definitely be going back for more!