Cross-Country Skiing Takes Off

Millions discover the winter counterpart to jogging

To get to work after the big snows in the East last week, a number of Manhattanites, from Wall Street lawyers to Broadway actors, simply got out their cross-country skis. So did Washingtonians, including Presidential Press Secretary Jody Powell, enabling him to better explain his boss's tumble while learning the sport in Maryland's Catoctin Mountain National Park near Camp David.

Cross-country skiing, or ski touring, which for years has dawdled in the valleys, a poor cousin to the downhill variety, has suddenly taken off. With more than 3 million devotees, easily double the number of only two years ago, it is the country's fastest-growing winter sport. "It is bigger than the bowling boom of the '50s, the tennis boom of the '60s and the running boom of the '70s," says Chicago's Morrie Mages, owner of the country's largest sporting-goods store, who has seen his sales of cross-country ski equipment increase fivefold in the past year alone. In California, ski resorts that two years ago had only 100 to 200 cross-country skiers a weekend, today may have 1,000. "It started as a neat thing to do in winter for people who were backpackers," says Dave Chantler of Seattle. "Now joggers, bicyclists and others are catching on to it. It's a good way for them to stay in shape."

Sparing its practitioners long drives up to the mountains and interminable lift waits, cross-country skiing can be done virtually anywhere: on snow-covered golf courses, cow pastures, backyards, city parks and streets. Yet those who want competition can have it. Some 4,500 resolute skiers entered last weekend's American-Birkebeiner cross-country race, a 55-km (34.2 miles) trek through the frozen marshes, forests and lakes of northern Wisconsin. (Last year the same race drew about 3,000 entries.)

Unlike the heavy, metal-edged varieties used by downhill aficionados, touring skis are narrow and graceful. The waxable kind that require specially color-coded waxes for different temperatures give optimum performance. But the skier must become something of an expert on snow and weather conditions and take the time to continually change waxes: a day's outing could necessitate the use of green for subzero temperatures, blue for slightly warmer air and red for melting snow. The more casual cross-country skier usually chooses a waxless ski that comes grooved with fish-scale, diamond or chevron patterns to provide both grip and glide. A light flexible boot is attached to the ski by a single toe-binding. A cross-country package complete with touring skis, boots and poles can be had for around $100, considerably less than the $300-to-$500 price tag on a similar downhill ensemble.

Tour skiing is safer than downhill skiing and far easier to learn. Once the novice has mastered the gliding-stride motion (not unlike Groucho Marx's fluid slouch), the other skills, like the herringbone (a method of walking uphill) and the telemark (a way of turning) can be learned by simple trial and error.

Besides, the cross-country skier does not have to contend with the oneupmanship in skiing ability and ski attire often prevalent at downhill resorts. "The guy who skis downhill is in a controlled atmosphere," notes Bob Wilcox of Eastern Mountain Sports Inc. in Boston. "He's onstage, he spends money on clothes, he's into a relatively short period of high energy. The cross-country skier is just the opposite. He's relaxed, he sets his own pace. Skiing cross-country is the winter counterpart to jogging." Increasingly, though, cars heading into the mountains carry both downhill and touring skis.

Says Tom Corcoran, president of the popular Waterville, N.H., Valley Resort:

"We don't see cross-country as competitive with downhill, but as complementary. It's like a two-car garage."

For some, cross-country is adopting too many of the frills of its downhill cousin.

"I came to this sport to avoid commercialization," says Jonathan Baum, a Manhattan lawyer. "It was an unpleasant shock for me when I first skied on a groomed trail. I said, 'Hey, I'm not the first person to be here.' "

Although there are some 900 ski touring centers with specially groomed and graded trails, such amenities remain optional. Cross-country skiing can still conjure up the image of solitary figures etching fine lines in unbroken snow. Tim Murphy, a poet from Minneapolis, sees the sport as "a chance, if you seek out the right places, to completely shuck civilization and enjoy the pristine beauty of the snow and cold."

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