Candy and Jim's Great Canadian Adventure: Cross Country Skiing Lesson

This past weekend I took a cross country ski lesson with friends Suzanne and Guy. Jim was signed up to take the lesson but conveniently got out of it by throwing himself down the stairs two days before the scheduled lesson. Oh, he's fine, but his ego was a little bruised. Old age will do that to you. Jim accompanied us out to the trails and took some beautiful wildlife pictures while we skied. He finally got some great shots of a moose!

The weather was perfect. The temperature started out at 12 F degrees but quickly warmed up. And we quickly warmed up! The morning was spent learning to balance on the skis by gliding back and forth on the parallel grooves or tracks cut into the snow in front of the Pocaterra ski hut in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park. There were about twenty of us in the class with two instructors. One of the instructors was six months pregnant and the other had given birth four months ago. These were some STRONG women! After lunch, we hit the trail. The first forty-five minutes felt like it was straight up hill! Coming back, was much better. We were rewarded with some nice flat trail and even some SWEET downhill. Suzanne and I decided we would try it again.....on flat trail next time!

Needless to say, I felt like I had been run over the next day. Those muscles had not been used in a very long time!