The US’s only magazine of XC skiing needs subscribers! Last year was low-snow during the main season, but then spring was hammered by great, enduring snow in many places which saved the day — but Xmas sales were so low that all ski biz has tightened and pulled back — hurting ads for our only print mag.
If you like skiing, one year is less than $10! Two yrs only $17.50!
Me, I’m pretty much a lifer.
…This season’s kickoff issue has an in-depth feature like you won’t see elsewhere: it’s about Dick Griffith, a guy who, for the past several decades, has been skiing his way solo and unsponsored across the Northwest Passage: from the Pacific to the Atlantic. He used wood skis early on even though glass was available — just coz he liked wood. He skipped a harness for his sled coz he liked the simplicity of a rope over his shoulder. He made it at age 73, and now there’s a biography out about him and his wife and their wild ways (they were early river runners and canyon explorers). He’s in his 80’s now — still chugging along.
The profile is written by Ron Watters. He writes most of the neat heritage work for this mag. He is one of the leading outdoor educators in the US and basically the only Professor of Outdoor Literature. He also runs the annual National Outdoor Book Award. So he’s not just a skier. He gets the big picture. He does a lotta good stuff!
(Actually, how many skiers are “just” skiers? XC is so great because it ties so many outdoor strands together. Basically, all of them! At the same time, in XC as everywhere else outdoors there’s a strong commercial push to specialize, to narrow down. And that’s the ONLY view that’s sponsored and promoted these days! A big casualty seems to be the skier who sometimes races *and* also sometimes skis with a picnic in their pack and a bota bag around their neck. That skier is common enough in the real world but rarely appears in ski media or product development. …And it’s why OYB exists!)
https://www.crosscountryskier.com
