Cross-Country Inns Are In

By J. D. Reed

The hills are alive with the sound of telemarking

In summer, the Home Ranch, north of Steamboat Springs, Colo., is a modestly successful dude ranch, luring urban cowboys and cowgirls with live horseflesh and barbecued beef. When the snows come, the ranch, like scores of summer inns and resorts from the California Sierra to Massachusetts, becomes a cross-country skiing resort. The demand for cross-country accommodations--and the carefully prepared trails through snowy woods, mountains and meadows they offer--has risen dramatically.

According to estimates by the U.S. Ski Association, in 1970 a mere 1,000 skiers were attracted to cross-country, while this year the number has leaped to more than 4 million. New techniques, products and uncharted areas are developing to serve regiments of "skinny-ski" addicts. Yellowstone, Crater Lake, Sequoia and other national parks are offering winter ski touring. In 1973 the 34-mile Birkebeiner race and an accompanying 17-mile contest drew only 75 contestants. This year's outing will be the sport's Boston Marathon, attracting more than 7,000 participants.

Racing, however, is not the main attraction for the kick-and-glide set, many of whom have never skied before. The allurement is the sport's unhurried solitude. At big downhill resorts there are often agonizing waits for ski lifts, and eateries are jammed. Mobs of hot-doggers and snow bunnies have turned Stowe and Vail into adrenalized assembly lines of sport. At the Home Ranch the pace slows. Its 580 aspen-studded acres offer cross-country skiers 20 miles of trails glistening in 2 ft. of new powder. Twenty guests--the inn's capacity--enjoy wine-and-cheese parties in the meadows, photograph elk, ermine and eagles, soak in private hot tubs and feed resident tame llamas. No sounds of sports cars, chain saws, chairlifts or rock music from apres-ski lounges pollute the mountain air. At $75 a day, including instruction, equipment and dinners of prime rib and smoked turkey, the ranch is half the price of similar downhill digs. But half price is only half the reason for the appeal. Ranch Operator Ken Jones says: "Most of our clientele are ex-downhillers. They're here to relax, unwind and get away from the throngs. Gliding through the trees without seeing or hearing anything is what's turning people on."

The Jackson Ski Touring Foundation in New Hampshire, one of the premier facilities in the country, provides more varied but equally successful enticements. Some 25,000 skiers enjoy everything from saunas to home-cooked meals offered by the ten inns that dot more than 100 miles of trails. "There is a madness in cross-country skiing," says Thomas Perkins, executive director of the Jackson group. "You take the absolute minimum in equipment and do extremes with it."

Some cross-country fanatics, in fact, refuse to accept the comforts of touring centers. For purists, there are challenges like the 35-mile, six-day trek across the ridge line of the Sierra in Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks. It is an experience in mountaineering as well as skiing. The route rises 6,000 ft., almost straight up from the roadhead, to peaks of 13,000 ft. and more. One requirement: a small radio transmitter for avalanche protection. Other arcana may include polypropylene underwear, vapor-barrier booties and avalanche-probe ski poles. The reward of the trek is skier's cocaine: unmarred 1,500-ft. alpine slopes. Experts claim the trail is the equal of Europe's Haute Route from Chamonix, France, to Zermatt, Switzerland.

The search for pristine slopes has led thousands of escapists into the back country. There, distinctions are blurred: touring fans discover the speedy pleasure of schussing, and downhillers get an aerobic workout on cross-country skis. The two passions meet in a 120-year-old technique called telemarking--a turn of great difficulty--which offers balance to the free-heeled skier. One ski is extended beyond the other until the skier is crouching. The rear ski rudders the front one into the turns necessary for steep downhill flights. One aficionado calls it "genuflecting on the run." A new generation of skis, slightly wider than the usual touring model and metal-edged for downhill curve cutting, is doing a brisk business in sports shops. Telemarking classes have become standard fare at the larger touring centers. There are even the first North American Telemark Championships in the offing. They will be held this March in Aspen. Says Suzanne Hogan, 32, a self-described ski bum and waitress at the Home Ranch: "Telemarking has all the excitement of white water and hang gliding. You're in the snow and part of it."

But for most participants, the pleasures of cross-country are not concocted from thrills and chills. Many tourers are family groups that simply strike out from the back door after a snowfall. Unplowed roads, golf courses and frozen lakes provide paths for the basis of the sport: rhythmic, exhilarating exercise in the country air. Observes Buck Elliott, operator of Colorado's Crooked Creek Ski Touring ranch: "We're back to a simpler life. Out here, you become more aware of what breathing and eating are all about." --ByJ.D. Reed.

Reported by Richard Woodbury/Denver

With reporting by Richard Woodbury/Denver

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