Cross-country ski season begins

As twilight fell on Saturday, propane lanterns lit Shorty’s Loop trail at the South Flower Creek Cross-Country Trails southwest of Libby. Greg and Susie Rice, along with Gary Crismon, hung lanterns on trees about every 30 yards, prepared hot cocoa and treats, and had a nice fire prepared to welcome those who enjoyed the first night ski of the season put on by the Kootenai XC Ski Club.

“It’s magical,” said Jenny Thorstenson, who was there with her husband and their three daughters to enjoy the ambience and ski the short loop.

“They love it,” Thorstenson said of her children. “They asked to come out on the last day of the holiday vacation.” The family started skiing after taking lessons from the club a couple years ago.

The cross-country club also rents equipment to those who want to try the sport but don’t have their own gear.

“There are a lot of appreciative families,” said Thorstenson, regarding the benefits offered by the ski club. Just then the president of the ski club, Greg Rice, came to aid one of the Thorstenson girls who was having trouble getting her skis off.

Greg and Susie Rice have shared their passion for cross-country skiing with others for years. Greg coached the Bill Koch Youth Ski Club between periods of acting as president of the Kootenai XC Ski Club. He took kids to competitions across the West, and several of his athletes performed well enough to place at junior nationals.

Bill Koch revolutionized skiing by popularizing the technique of skate skiing in the 1970s. Skate skiing involves specialized skis and waxes specific for different snow conditions.

Classic cross-country skiing is more straightforward and user-friendly.

“For people that just do it recreationally, no-wax ski packages you can get relatively inexpensive. And that’s still pretty simple, you can still go out and classic ski in your backyard, in the hills or along a prepared track,” Greg Rice said.

No-wax skis have scales on the bottom that prevents the user from sliding backwards during the kick motion used in classic skiing.   

The Kootenai XC Ski Club started in 1978 and has about 200 people who receive email newsletters from the club. Their primary responsibility is maintaining and grooming the trails at the South Flower Creek.

Last year Susie Rice was approached by April and Nik Rewerts about being involved in a winter recreation program for students from Libby schools. The Rewertses ran a grant-driven summer program and wanted to do a similar project for kids in the winter.

“They thought there would be 10 to 12 kids, and I thought that would be a wonderful number of kids because that’s how many do the summer program. And we ended up with 40 kids signing up,” Susie Rice said with a chuckle.

Included in the winter program were lessons from Brian Baxter, who taught the kids about animal tracks and signs. For one of the Thursday classes Baxter will take the students to the Bear Creek Ski Trails and look for signs of animals in the area.

Before students went on holiday break, Forest Service employee Jon Jeresek talked to the kids about traveling safely in the wilderness and the dangers of avalanches.

“Now we’ll have the kids for three lessons - two of them at the golf course and then up at South Flower. And our culminating event will be a night ski out at the South Flower. So there will be three day-time lessons and then one night ski,” Susie Rice said.

Greg Rice said the lessons are a lot about just having fun on skis. There’s not a lot of teaching technique. “But we do teach the kids the basics of going forward, how to double-pole, how to step-turn, and how to snow-plow turn,” he said.

With 40 kids signed up for the lessons, volunteers were recruited to help. Susie Rice said, “It’s mind boggling to me to even think about how we’re even going to get that much equipment passed out.”

From grooming the trails to maintaining the club’s website, almost everything the cross-country club does is made possible by volunteers. In the summer there’s a volunteer workday and again in the fall to clear debris from trails.

With the help of a Forest Service Resource Advisory Committee grant last year, the club had some drainage maintenance work done at South Flower and was able to extend their shelter to add a wood shed.

This year the Kootenai XC Club has rented out about 70 ski packages, many of them to the 40 students receiving lessons on Thursdays through the month of January. Most of the equipment was donated to the club by Libby schools that invested in the sport years ago, but no longer had the money to support the activity.

Rental charges allow the cross-country club to maintain and periodically update the outmoded equipment. Gary Crismon volunteers his time to repair and replace the cache of ski accessories.

The club doesn’t have any other activities planned this year, but night skiing will be held on Saturdays starting at 5:30 p.m., weather permitting. An end-of-the-year ski festival featuring food stations placed along the course is a possibility.

Other cross-country trail options in the Libby area include: Ross Creek Trail No. 4005, Bear Creek, Rainbow Ridge, Flatiron Summit and Timberlane Campground, which are all intermittently groomed.

Dozens of people, including several families, attended the Kootenai XC Ski Club’s first night ski of the season at South. The atmosphere was jovial and inviting with the temperature in the mid-20s, which, with the trail just recently groomed, made the night perfect for a ski.

The youngest in attendance, Hawken Lampton, sported a full-body blue snowsuit and is on the cusp of turning one year old.

“It’s a wonderful legacy. Cross-country skiing is meant to be a lifetime sport,” Susie Rice said.

Jared and Deborah Lampton have made that a possibility for their son Hawken and their five-year-old son, Jack.