It wasn't until we moved to Norway that I realized - hello - it's called Nordic skiing for a reason. As in, Norway (okay, and Sweden and Finland) is the birthplace of Nordic skiing. I swear Norwegians are born on skis. I have seen children I didn't think were old enough to walk wearing their little boots waiting patiently for the train while mom and/or dad hold their two foot long skis in one hand. Cute. And just a smidge intimidating. It seems pretty much everyone here skis. It's not unusual to see hoards of people on the weekends waiting at the metro platform, skis in hand, ready to go for a long "tur" of 10, 20, or sometimes 30 kilometers for the day. Quite a few people even go night skiing on weekdays after work on the extensive system of lighted, groomed cross country trails just a metro stop or two away from the city center. If every a city was built around winter sport, Oslo is it for sure.
Now, I don't know about you, but where I come from, cross country skiing is fairly mild. You might go up a little, down a little, and around some curves. A little. Here? Not so much. There is a lot of up and down, super narrow tracks, and what I like to call kamikaze corners. Those are areas where you're going downhill and around a tight corner, in a narrow clearing, usually not in any sort of track, and you can't see what's coming around the bend. I am sure that sounds fun to some of you. Not really to me. Don't get me wrong: I like skiing. I am a solid green/blue downhill skier, and I can generally get to the bottom of a slope with few problems. But take away my edges, my shaped skis, and any control afforded to me by my heel being attached to my ski and it's a whole different story.
The first time I went cross country skiing with a friend of mine here in January, I stopped counting how many times I fell at eight. Upon seeing the giant bruise on my knee after my adventure, my father in law asked me where my helmet was. Given the results of my first attempt at cross country skiing in over 20 years, G and I did what any responsible couple would do faced with such a daunting challenge to our sanity and safety: we signed up for cross country ski lessons.
The local ski club, Skiforeningen, offered English-speaking beginner lessons, so we enrolled in the class. We just had our last class this past weekend. The past five weeks have been fun but challenging. I highly recommend going through Skiforeningen for classes next year if you are in Oslo and want to learn to ski. They offer different types of classes, and our instructor was great. He was very patient and offered lots of good personal critique. Lots and lots.
How did it go? Pretty well, I think. In general, after about the first hour of class, I would feel comfortable on the narrow little toothpicks they call touring skis. Then we'd start practicing downhill and any comfort I had established in the first hour evaporated. Despite my aversion to downhill, we actually really enjoyed our class. G was a natural at the downhill after our first lesson, and we even went on a tur a couple of weeks ago with a friend of ours. I think if we had started skiing earlier in the season and did it more often, I would feel pretty comfortable on downhill by now. Maybe next year; hopefully we can ski more then. When in Norge, do as the nordmenn do, right?
These days, with the snow finally melting and spring starting to arrive, it's hard to think about skiing anymore. I am ready to fast forward to hiking season. Bring on the slush; I brought my gaiters, poles, and Yaktraks!
Here are some photos from our ski class experience. Enjoy.
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| G applying blue wax. Wax color is specific to temperature. |
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| Me, debating whether to take my skis off and walk down the hill. |
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| Practicing our form without poles. |
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| G making it look easy. |
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| Typical ski track (see how it drops off in the background?). |
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| Picnicking in the snow, post-tur. This reminds me of climbing Rainier. |
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