Beginners cross-country skiing

[Neroicco]

Hi - anyone recommend a good spot to try out cross country skiing? - ideally looking for clubs that can provide a bit of instruction and rental gear?

[Queen K]

I love x-country skiing.

Renting the equipment is a good idea, at first. However there is nothing like owning your own. This huge snowfall has provided many a chance to ski around the Parkinson Rec Center grounds, for free. Not to mention Robertson Park off of Willow Crescent.

I absolutely love the Nordic Ski club up past Big White for beginners. The colour code system denoting "beginners" is more honest than that of Telemark, up by Crystal Mountain.

Nordic has a lovely series of trails which interconnect better too. I found that on days that I was doing well, Nordic provides more opportunities to add kilometers to your ski run without committing you to huge amounts of time. In other words, shorter runs which curve around back to the main trails and back to the excellent cabin.

I found at Big White the trails are long, and I mean long, with more up and steep downs, with little opportunity to circumnavigate the steepness. That doesn't happen at Nordic, which is another 15-20 minutes past Big White and a right-hand turn off the highway.

Nordic has lessons for beginners, they have a website too, just use google.

[Neroicco]

thanks for the info!

[Queen K]

This Sunday's Jan. 4/09 Kelowna Daily Courier had a huge article about x-c skiing, either in the sports section or the lifestyle section. You can pick up tips there too.

[Glacier]

I used to cross-country ski when I lived in the Carboo. Even entered a few races over the years. I have been thinking about getting back into it lately, but I notice it isn't as popular here in the Okangan than it was in the Cariboo. I used to buy my skis from Source For Sports where they have an entire wall dedicated to X-country skis, but the selection here in Kelowna seemed pretty small.

[Queen K]

It is not promoted here as other places.

In the last couple of years a Vernon sports store was positioning themselves as THE xc ski store in the Okanagan, but I haven't seen their ads this year.