X-C skiing and winter camping

I picked up my ski rentals from REI and went over to Fort Snelling on Saturday. This would be my first time cross-country skiing. I've downhilled but it's been over 10 years since the last time I've had skinny boards on my feet. I was determined to stay upright the whole time, something which I never did in my previous career as a downhill skier. Unfortunately, I fell about 5 minutes into this new career, mainly because I thought I was doing so well I could just look around and not think about what I was doing.

But after that it was all good. Well, mostly all good. I skied about 8K at Fort Snelling, twice around the 2K loop on Picnic Island and then a 4K loop of sorts around Pike Island. There were a bunch of deer on Pike as usual. The skiing was relatively flat and easy and perfect for someone who doesn't know what he's doing. I don't think I looked any worse than some of the other people I saw. Of course, they were probably using my form to gauge how they were doing and undoubtedly felt good about themselves.

My clothing worked well - running tights under my nylon hiking pants, and a long sleeve shirt covered with a short sleeve shirt and a long sleeved fleece. The wind didn't cut through like I had feared and I was perfectly warm once I got moving. The new baclava and gloves were great too.

I drove to Wild River State Park on Sunday to camp overnight and ski some more. Wild River has 35 miles of X-C trails and supposedly some trumpeter swans that hang out on open water of the St. Croix River in winter. While paying for my campsite, a woman inquired about the best place to see otters, and from the ranger's response I deduced there must either be otters in the park or he was humoring her. Either way, I planned to look for 'em.

I also learned the shower building was still open - nice to know, even though I hadn't brought anything for a shower. At least I would have access to a warm bathroom close to my campsite. I chose a campsite which had recently been home to a partial snow shelter, so the snow was fairly well packed and it was easy to walk around. That was nice for moving around but not so nice for setting my stakes and anchors in the snow - they really need 6 inches or more of decent snow and I had maybe 2 inches, so I wound up shovelling snow over them and then waiting while it set up.

Campsite prior to setting up the tent



It took over an hour to get the tent up and I wound up only having about 1.5 hours of skiing on Sunday. My clothing worked out well again, even though I forget my running tights at home. I subbed in my fleece pants for the tights and was fine. Got to try out my goggles in the wind and they worked well, although they probably look like major overkill for X-C skiing. I didn't care.

Snow covered prairie along the trail



Back at the campsite I made some dinner and put all my gear in the tent while it was slowly getting dark. The clouds had cleared up after sunset and the stars were out, temps were still decent and all was well. I made a fire and read a book until about 8:30 or so, then got ready for bed. Temps were probably still close to 20 so it was still comfortable, although my toes were a bit cold as usual. Once in my sleeping bag, I read some more and tried to warm up my feet - they were cold for a few hours and finally warmed up after I fell asleep.

Around 3 am I woke up and remembered why I don't really like winter camping - aside from the long nights, extra time and effort to do almost anything, I really hate the way my breath condenses on my sleeping bag overnight. It's kind of disgusting to wake up and have this wet fabric right by my face.

At least it only got down to about 10 degrees or so - it wasn't too difficult to get up in the morning and get things started. I went over to the bathroom and let my extra clothes warm up, then dressed and got some warm water to boil for my breakfast. Once I got my fuel warm enough to light, it didn't take long before I was eating and then getting ready to go skiing again.

I skied down to the river and followed it for about 0.5 miles. No otters, but I did see 1 trumpeter swan. And I gave up on the one big uphill I had and just walked it up. Other than 3 fingertips being painfully cold at the start, the skiing went well. I opted out of the longer loop that continued along the river as I knew I didn't have enough food to make it without crashing on my way back to the campsite. I'll most likely go back this winter and take some extra food so I don't have to cut things short.

Frozen St. Croix River


Swan on the opposite side of the river



While skiing, I thought about what to do for my March vacation and mostly decided I wasn't all that interested in what I had planned to do: namely, drive to Voyageurs National Park and snowshoe for 3-4 days while winter camping. I discovered I like skiing more than snowshoeing, and camping just takes so much more effort in the winter. I'm leaning towards going up to the Gunflint Trail to ski during the day and stay in a cabin at night. I'll do some more research and figure out where I want to go and what I want to do for lodging.

Anyway, back to this weekend: once back at my campsite, I tore things down and packed up the Jeep. I briefly thought about getting a sandwich outside the park and and going back to hike the river trail but decided I'd rather just head home. I'll save that for another weekend when I'm a little more prepared and ready to spend most of the day out on the trail.

Pics from the Wild River are here, nothing from Fort Snelling this time.