the Way of the Turtle

HOW THE DRAGON LADY GOT HER GLIDE BACK
4 Mile XC Ski at Oatka Creek Park
Friday, January 2, 2009

After a mostly sedentary New Year's Day, it felt good to get outside for a while today. My copy of Snow Trails by Rich & Sure Freeman described Oatka Creek Park as a good place to escape the usual crowds on the winter trails, and I remember enjoying our hike there last fall, so that's where we headed to get in a little skiing... and for Ann to finally try out the new skis I got her for Christmas!

For the past few years Ann was always very frustrated whenever we went skiing because her skis had very little glide. I'd wanted to get her a new set for a while and this fall REI had a good sale which included a pair that I hoped would work for her. Unfortunately, I couldn't order her boots that way (she needed to try them on) but we found a shop in Schenectady, Plaine & Son Bike-Ski-Snowboard, which gave us a good price on a pair of boots. So once we got back to Rochester she was eager to try out her new gear.

There were more cars in the lot than I'd expected and the trails had clearly been skied pretty heavily, but happily we didn't see many people while we were there. We basically planned to follow the route we'd walked last November - taking the trails down to Oatka Creek and then along the perimeter of the park and up into the fields to loop back to the parking lot. There were more hills than I'd remembered as we made our way through the woods, but nothing too tough. We went out on the old bridge across the creek and got to see a heron fly by overhead. From there we made our way through the woods and up the one steep hill, then over to the trails through the fields.

Ann seemed to really enjoy having a good glide to her skis again, though she commented that it would take getting used to, since they go a lot faster than what she'd gotten used to. I know she also liked the fact that not only did she not have to struggle to keep up with me, but until she got tired she had no problem staying ahead of me.

Unfortunately, I didn't bring a trail map along, so we ended up getting lost in the fields and went down a couple of trails where we eventually had to turn around and go back. That definitely got tiring after a while, but eventually we found our way back to the main trail and the parking lot... it just took quite a bit longer than we'd planned.

JMH