Minnesota Trails

By: Dave Simpkins, Editor/Publisher

You can’t cross country ski through tall pines, tamaracks and oaks unless someone cuts, dozes or mangles tall pines, tamaracks and oaks.

Souring Eagle Ski Trail: Labor of Love

By Derek Dickinson, Outdoor Writer/Photographer

I've spent many hours gliding through Minnesota's trails on a pair of cross-country skis. I rarely give thought to those trails under my feet.

      Imagine, children playing soccer on cross-country skies, rocking back and forth on a wide teeter-totter with those skies and trying to negotiate a hill on one ski.

            These are just a few of the activities young people ages seven to 13 participate in during the Loppet Adventure Winter Camp held each year at Theodore Wirth Park in Minneapolis during winter break.

Trails of Brotherly Dedication

By: Pamela Eyden, Outdoor Writer

When Brother Jerome and Brother John of Saint Mary’s University in Winona, Minn., first started cross-country skiing in the 1960s and 70s, there were no meaningful ski trails around Winona.

They skiied the frozen Mississippi River backwaters, but backwaters are flat, so they started eyeing the hills behind campus where they had to bushwhack up a rough, heavily wooded ravine to the top of St. Yon’s Valley.

Classic Ski Weekend at Flathorn Gegoka

By Rudi Hargesheimer, Outdoor Writer/Photographer

I thought I had graduated to the perfection of the North Shore’s best cross-country ski trails long time ago.

Beautiful ski trails are everywhere in the Arrowhead’s big snow belt with twelve feet wide, skate lane on the left, classic track on the right. Guaranteed grooming creates a fast and firm deck for super fun skiing.

An abrupt stop to that awaited our group of ten on a trip to the Flathorn Gegoka Ski Area. We re-discovered old style classic single-track skiing, tight woods yet nicely groomed trails. Our group shared two simple cabins, at a rustic but very nice resort. I felt we stepped back in time.

    Full moons can be alluring, enlightening and romantic.       Full moons can also be dangerous.

We have known this for a long time and now it is official.

         Last weeks wonderful little snow storm and a few dustings have officially started the 2010-2011 Nordic ski season.

 Much of the eastern park of the state from Winona to the Gunflint Trail has enough snow to ski.

           Ever feel torn between cross-country skiing and walking your dog?

Dr. Tom Stoa: Always Looking for Parks and Trails Opportunities

By Linda Picone

Tom Stoa’s interest in parks and trails first developed when he was elected to the Minnesota Legislature in 1976. “When I was elected, I sought assignment to Willard Munger’s Environment Committee,” he says. “He made me chair of the Parks and Open Spaces Subcommittee, which was responsible for parks and trails.”