XC ski books (send suggestions to amherstnordic@gmail.com):

  • The Cross Country Ski Book by John Caldwell
  • Celebrate Winter by John Morton (Amherst Nordic 2019 fall speaker)
  • World Class: The making of the US Women’s Cross Country Ski Team by Peggy Shin
  • Brave Enough by Jessie Diggins
  • Skiing the Pioneer Valley by Bruce Scofield, Chris Ryan and Nancy Prajzner

For the kids:

  • Cross Country Cat by Mary Calhoun
  • The Race of the Birkebeiners by Lise Lunge-Larsen (has some violence and scary imagery in it)

History:

Amherst Nordic was founded in 2018 during a series of informal meetings at Pioneer Valley CoHousing and has since grown to more than 200 members.

Memories of youth skiing in Amherst and Pelham in the 1970s from Al and Judy Hudson:

We had two small x-country programs: 1) Friday afternoon sessions for Amherst’s Common School;  2) Saturday session for the Pelham Recreation Commission, of which I was a member.  In both cases we were asked to do the programs, and in both cases the skiing mostly took place, snow conditions permitting, in Pelham’s forest roads, trails and glades. The objectives of the ski programs were to introduce young folks to the joys of x-country ski touring, and to have FUN, at very low cost and with very little traveling involved.  As I said, we mostly skied in the Pelham hills, although in the Common School program we made occasional forays on the Amherst golf course adjacent to the school to let folks stride out.  No visits to ski tows. By modern standards we were operating in the middle ages.  Skis were wooden, and either borrowed or owned.  Bindings were 3-pin Rotefella affairs with simple boots to match.  Poles were mostly basketed bamboo in lengths appropriate to each skier.  In all, the kit was quite inexpensive.  Probably the most expensive part of the operation were waxes (which Judy and I provided from our frequently replenished store).

This was the tail end of “classic” x-country era; skating on wide, groomed trails was just evolving as a technique.  Waxing lore was still a major concern.  At the beginning of our programs, we scraped skis and applied pine tar base coating (not a favorite activity), and at the beginning of each session we discussed snow conditions and the appropriate hard or klister waxes to be used. The kids waxed their own skis.

Technique was classic parallel, and designed for tracked snow; but participants took turns breaking trail; no attempt was made to teach telemark technique; parallel striding, single and double poling; herringbone, step turning, and snowplow were taught for use as needed; on the golf course we occasionally found conditions allowing skating, but by-and-large this was not a high priority part of out tool kit.