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XC Skiing with Mitch Mode The dogs have had their days I spent autumn in the company of hunting dogs. We walked overgrown logging roads, the priceless recreational heritage of industry in northern Wisconsin. We plied lowlands and high country both, through thick brush, oak and maple. We skirted the edge of swamps and bogs, working our way uphill and down. This country has terrain, and we saw it all. The dogs and I started the season in the heat of mid September. We continued through the riot of October's autumnal color and will end things in November when the trees are bared by chill winds. We always start on the shoulder of summer and end on the shortened days as winter nears. And on a day white with early snow, I ignore the hunting gear, pick up the skis and break my dogs' hearts. They stay at home while I go skiing. The dogs do not understand my cruelty. They look at me with the eyes of the betrayed when I take skis and boots and gear and push the dogs back from the door. I set foot outside into a new season. The dogs run to the window overlooking the driveway and howl like tormented souls. But I drive away. Things change. If the dogs do not understand this, I certainly do. I drive the miles, park the truck and often ski the same trails that a month earlier I had hunted. I can feel a connection to the season and land, to the terrain and weather. There is a certain comfort in that, a certain rightness to it, the link between land and recreation in both warm and cold seasons. Time spent outside is important whether the vehicle that takes us there is hunting, boating, riding or skiing. And we'll be skiing soon. Winter draws near, a season spare and stark so soon after the vivid colors of October; days short, nights long and dark, cold that reaches deep. And snow. Snow that, if we are fortunate, will come early, pile up and stay long into the far reaches of the winter season. In November, we can know all of this. We can look ahead with hope and optimism. We can plan. We know what lies ahead. My dogs know none of this. For them the early mornings hold no joy. The pants I put on are different from the tattered brush pants I wear when I hunt, so every morning they check out my pants. If I pull on work pants or ski pants they lose interest. If I put on the old pair of hunting pants, they do not leave my heels, their eyes alight with sheer happiness. But now my dogs watch me gather gear I need outside but not them. These are tough times for the pups. I start my new season with an informal evaluation of what I want from the time ahead. This is not a rigid program of goal setting, of writing down a mantra for achievements and accomplishments. I have little energy for that as it runs counter to what I look for in time of recreation. My goals, my pre-season resolutions, are far more nebulous. I do not even think, "I'd like to ski more often." That's a given. We all want that. And it's pretty much a cinch that come season's end, we will not have done it. We never really do all we want in a season. I will wager that when the snow is gone and the spring mornings dawn, looking back, we will say, "I really did not ski as much as I wanted to." That's the thing with what we love: we never get enough of it. My goals are more often aimed at skiing at night, in that time of splendor, or maybe skiing some of the old-time trails I grew up skiing, trying to reconnect with my roots in this sport. Last year, ironically, my goal was to ski cross country less and get back on the downhill skis more often. It was an effort to explore the connection between the two variations on the same theme. Cross-country skiing and downhill skiing started in the same place and I was curious to seek out the similarities. As I hunted with the dogs this fall, my pre-season ski goal evolved. We'd be up early, in time to watch the sun rise, and get out in the woods shortly thereafter. It is a peaceful time, a special time of awakening and renewal, of peace and calm before the day hits full stride. There is the mystery in darkness giving way to daylight, when shadow and form blur and you are not certain where one starts and the other ends. There is the sheer beauty of sunrise, the magic of daybreak. The low angle of early light casts a beautiful aura. It struck me that I rarely ski at daybreak. I felt a sense of loss at my realization that in winter I wait, wait for the temperature to rise and daylight to take hold. I wondered how I had come to hunt at dawn but had long stopped skiing early in the morning. So on hunting mornings, when color and warmth dominated, my thoughts wandered to skiing. I remembered days when I was up at 6 a.m. to ski an hour before work. Last year I didn't do that once. The year prior … did I get out at dawn then? When was the last time? I mulled it over as I walked the thick woods in the October glory. And in thinking it over I remembered what I was missing. Is there any morning more beautiful than a cold winter day with clear skies and hoarfrost on the trees? Is there any time as striking as a winter morning, any time more rewarding to ski the trails all alone? Is there any reason, save sheer lethargy, not to ski then? My pre-season resolution crystallized as I hunted birds at daybreak. So there it is. I have no lofty goals for a faster Birkie or racking up distances in a log book. I feel no pressure to ski more often, attempt to achieve textbook technique, not fall on downhills or regain a level of fitness I had years ago. Only this: to ski at daybreak on a day chill with winter cold and watch the sun break the tops of the bare trees; to leave the house in darkness, drink coffee on the drive to the trailhead and then ski into the day. Your skiing resolutions may not match mine, and that is fine. For me, I want the dawn of a winter morn. Mitch Mode started cross-country skiing with "proper" gear (wood skis and leather 3-pin boots) more than 35 years ago. He has skied every Birkie since 1978 but no longer races. He is the co-owner of Mel's Trading Post, a sporting goods store in Rhinelander, Wisconsin, named after his late father.
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