SnoNews

Each year ESPN Magazine publishes its Body issue that features athletes posing nude as athletic and taseful human bodies and this year one of the models will be Jessie Diggins, the Olympic gold medal cross country skier at the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Jessie Diggins and Sadie Bjornsen leap onto the podium after finishing third in the team sprint at the 2017 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships. (Andrew Shinn)

Scandinavian countries, Germany, Italy, and Russia dominated women’s cross-country competitions for 60 years, but that began to change in 2012 with the breakout of the U.S. Women’s Cross-Country Team.

Ski lesson with Canadian Association of Nordic Ski Instructors certified ski instructor. (CANSI)

The vast majority of cross country (XC) skiers do not take XC ski lessons, but rather they start with friends or family, who are usually ill equipped to teach XC skiing. So, who needs XC ski lessons? Most of us do!

Had Nazi Germany won the competition to build the first atomic bomb in the early 1940s, the world today could be a very different place. The book entitled The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler's Atomic Bomb by Neal Bascomb is the true accounting of the race to build the atom bomb during World War II. Cross-country skiing played an important role.

West Coast ski resorts had seen a lack of snow for a few years and in the winter of 2015-16, it was the east and central regions’ turn. Alpine ski areas have been making snow for decades but it is relatively new for cross country ski areas.

Not everyone who visits a ski resort wants to or is able to ski or snowboard, so resorts offer other activities. Among those options, guests can explore and enjoy the outdoors on snowshoes.

The Cross Country Ski Areas Association (CCSAA) announced the retirement of executive director, Chris Frado effective Oct. 7, 2016 after 30 years at the helm of the organization. "Chris has served CCSAA for so long that she absolutely defines the organization as we know it today. With her spirit and energy she has built CCSAA into an international cross country ski information center. We are so sad to see her go,” said JoJo Toeppner, CCSAA Board Chair and director of skiing for Royal Gorge, Calif. 

The largest kids' Nordic ski festival in the United States, The New England Bill Koch League Festival (BKL Festival) will be hosted by Great Glen Trails Outdoor center March 5-6.

The "Women's Getaway" weekend or program has become an annual tradition among some women. Small or extended groups of women, ladies, girls, mothers, daughters, or friends organize a get together unaccompanied by (one might even say unburdened by) or exclusive of men, boys, brothers, and fathers. The motivation and/or common denominator is about connecting.

About a quarter of the cross country (XC) skiing population is older than 50 years old and as the large segment of population known as Baby Boomers continues to age, they are remaining active - many of them are looking for softer or easier forms of recreation. Cross country skiing and snowshoeing fit that prescription.