Happy trails — at least sometimes

Happy trails — at least sometimes

EDITOR:

As a retired older person who gave up skiing downhill a good many years ago, I am grateful to have the Mill Creek Metroparks cross-country ski trail so convenient to where I live for frequent excursions. In past snowy winters, I have completed the circuit around the golf course’s 36 holes more than 40 times.

I am especially thankful to be able to use the ski trail when the park’s trails become too icy for safe walking. (I broke my right wrist in a fall on an icy trail some years ago.)

But the snow conditions on the golf course can be very fluky, and there have been many times when I have had to walk in off the trail, carrying my skis.

Last Tuesday, I thought that conditions were good for an outing as it was cold and there was a good amount of snow, some of which had fallen overnight.

However, aforesaid fluky conditions prevailed. I had forgotten my ski scraper, and had to stop numerous times to scrape the ice and packed snow off the bottoms of my skis on trees, benches and on the edge of the walls of a restroom. By the time I reached the intersection of West Golf Drive and Route 224 I was so exasperated and tired that I doffed my skis and walked back to the clubhouse parking lot on the road, carrying the skis over my shoulder.

The next day, The Vindicator ran a front page photo taken the previous day of a young woman skier who was quoted as saying she enjoyed zipping along on the golf course trail and observing wildlife. I certainly hadn’t done any “zipping” that same day. (I can’t explain the discrepancy between her experience and mine, except that perhaps she exaggerated her experience a little, or that she skied much later in the day than I had after previous skiers had improved the trail.)

My point is that skiing conditions on the park trail can be so variable that one can enjoy an outing or be very disappointed.

However, the park apparently thinks that all it has to do to create a cross-country skiing course is to erect an appropriate sign and plow a parking lot without any thought of trail conditions.

I have skied a number of times at Allegany State Park near Jamestown, N.Y., and know that they groom an impressive number of trials there. I am sure that other cross-country skiing facilities also groom their trails.

I don’t know if trail grooming would be feasible on the Metroparks facility, but I have suggested that they consider it.

ROBERT R. STANGER

Boardman