Making Tracks
Number of skiers grows as Juneau Nordic Ski Club works to maintain trails with volunteers
November's cold weather and heavy snowfall left Nordic skiers in Juneau ready for what promises to be a busy season.
"It can only get better from last year," said Mike Sigler, who works at the federal fisheries lab at Auke Bay and was skiing with co-worker Michele Masuda during the lunch hour Thursday.
Though the pair had the Mendenhall Campground trails to themselves that afternoon, they've seen as many as 12 lunchtime skiers there some days this year. On the weekend, the trails can get much busier.
Last year, the Juneau Nordic Ski Club had about 210 members. But the number of people using the Mendenhall Campground, Dredge Lakes and Eaglecrest Nordic trails was in the thousands, said club President Marc Scholten.
The popularity of cross-country, or Nordic, skiing in Juneau has grown considerably in recent years, club members said. The group hopes some of the new skiers will become members this year to help pay for the equipment and fuel for setting tracks at the campground and at Dredge Lakes.
"I think the campground has really helped introduce more skiing," said Annie Kincheloe, a Juneau Nordic Ski Club board member. "But I know a lot of people at the campground do not pay anything. That trail grooming is all volunteer."
Club volunteers groom the Mendenhall Campground trail and the Dredge Lakes trails every time more than a couple of inches of fresh snow falls, or when the tracks get distorted by the footprints of walkers and their pets, Scholten said.
The U.S. Forest Service helps keep both trails groomed as well, said Scholten, who works for the agency. The money for federal grooming comes from the Fee Demonstration Project, which collects a $3 fee from visitors to the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center in the summer.
Eaglecrest Ski Area, which provides the highest-elevation groomed tracks and trails for Nordic skiing, can sometimes be the saving grace of cross-country skiing when rain washes out the snow on trails at sea level. The Lower Loop was covered in 28 inches of snow on Thursday.
The Juneau Nordic Ski Club and Eaglecrest are working together to decide how to spend a $25,000 grant from the Alaska Legislature to improve Nordic skiing at the area, said Bart Watson, Eaglecrest liaison for the club.
Some of the money has been spent on a hydraulic track-setter for the upper and lower loops, Watson said.
"It can make a nice, deep, classic track even in hard-packed snow," he said. "Eaglecrest got really good at using it last year, so I'm expecting the quality of the tracks up there to be much better."
Eaglecrest grooms the 5-kilometer Lower Loop daily, said Tom Brayton, assistant director of the ski school at Eaglecrest. The 3-kilometer Upper Loop is groomed on the weekends.
Some of the rest of the grant will be used to improve the trail so they can be used when snow conditions are marginal, Watson said.
"That could mean improving access to the Upper Loop, getting an Upper Loop that is more gentle, not expert terrain, and also getting access to Cropley Lake," Watson said.
Cropley Lake is located at about the same elevation as the Upper Loop, but it has less hills and more open skiing areas, he said. Creating a ski loop near the lake this year is unlikely.
This year, the Juneau Nordic Ski Club and Eaglecrest hope to introduce more people to proper ski techniques. Scholten hopes to start a master's ski program, where he'll meet with adult members of the ski club weekly to give them pointers on skate and classic skiing - two common types of Nordic skiing.
Last year, seven ski-school instructors at Eaglecrest earned their certification as level-one instructors of classic and skate skiing from the Professional Ski Instructors of America. Several people have taken Nordic ski lessons so far this year, Brayton said.
By taking a lesson, skiers can benefit from having a "third eye" watching their technique, Brayton said.
"There's that whole saying that if you can walk, you can cross-country ski," he said. "Really, if you can walk, you can walk on cross-country skis. But if you can get some technique and actually start gliding, you can do far better skiing."
The Juneau Nordic Ski Club hopes to bring Adam Verrier, an Olympic Nordic skier who lives in Anchorage, to Juneau for skate and classic ski clinics, Watson said. He and Brayton hope beginning skiers will take lessons at Eaglecrest before the clinics so they can get the most from a training session with Verrier.
"People can take a lesson first, then benefit from the top-level skiing instruction," Watson said.
• Christine Schmid can be reached at cschmid@juneauempire.com.