The Freedom of Snowshoe and Ski – Splice Today

On snowy terrain,equipment shapes where you can go, how fast you can move, your risks, your hopes,your sense of what youre doing there.Trade-offsabound.Snowshoescanget you through rugged terrain,at a walking pace; strapped onto your hiking boot, they distribute weight to keep you above the snow, while a jaggedmetalcrampon provides a solid grip.

By snowshoe I meanthemodern version,typically with an aluminum frame,a development of the past half-century. The traditional wooden snowshoe crisscrossed with rawhide lacings is another story; Im told its like walking on a tennis racket, though it has its aficionados. Ive snowshoed over the years. A few years ago, I took my son snowshoeing into the park next door to our house in northern New Jersey. The staffers told us this was prohibited by regulations, and soon revamped their No Skiing signage toincludeNo Snowshoeing.

In cross-country, or Nordic,skiing,there are lacedbootsthatclick onto the skiat the toe, leaving the heel free; you step but also glide, picking up speed and momentum.Nordic skis are narrower thantheskis for Alpine, or downhill, skiing. Snowshoes and cross-country skis bothgiveyoua sense of beinglightlyencumbered compared tothebulkybootsandtightbindingsofAlpine,althoughdownhill skisenable a world of speed, outpacing even their rival, the snowboard.

Lastweekend, we went to Mohonk Mountain House, a sprawling, century-and-a-half-old resort in the Shawangunk Mountains, or Gunks, of New YorkStatesHudson Valley. Its aspecialplace tomy wife and me, not least because we got married there;wed first scoped it out as a venue right afterId proposed in nearby Minnewaska State Park. Recent snows ensured thered be ample snowshoeing and cross-country skiing on the resorts property and in the surrounding 8000-acre Mohonk Preserve.

My wife, son and Isnowshoed and skiedcross-country, the formeractivityon a scenic path along a ridge, the latter onmodestly slopedtrails through the woods.On trailsshared by snowshoers and skiers, its good etiquette for snowshoers to stayoffgrooves carved byskis, to avoid messing up the smooth skiing passage these allow. The snowshoers, after all, can go just about anywhere. A number of rugged side pathsat Mohonk were marked as snowshoe trails.

Downhill skiing is a family tradition on my wifes side, as Irecently wrote.The skills of winter sports are transferable to a degree.My wife does cross-country with the balanced ease of a longtime downhiller, and our 11-year-old son got the hang of it quickly. Ive onlygotten intocross-countrythis year,though I trieditoncetwo decades ago.Cross-countryslearning curveat the outset is less steep thanthat ofdownhill skiing, butitstill leaves room to improve and try more difficult trails.We went ice skating a couple of times over the weekend, as well. My skills there are minimal, ironic as thats the only winter sport I learned as a kid. Long non-participation had brought me to square one, stepping gingerly across the ice, trying to glide.

There are numerous variations for moving across snow and ice, among them: Alpine touring, in which you switch between a free and a locked-in heel so as to travel uphill as well as downhill, without the use of a ski lift; backcountry skiing with an emphasis on ungroomed snow; ski mountaineering, which includes elements of climbing; telemarking, where a bent knee and a free heel are employed in downhill; skate skiing, a form of cross-country using shorter skis and a side-to-side motion like that of a skater. Its a world of choice and exploration.

Theres a freedom to winter sports, an attitude that they cultivate, that you want to be out there, not confined indoors, that you can see things and go places you wouldnt get to otherwise. Climate changeposes athreattothis, raising prospects that snowfall will be less plentifulandlessreliable; that people will spend more time indoors year-round, in air conditioning during theextendedsummerbeforesegueinginto a tedious, sedentary winter.

Libertarians, among whom I once counted myself,focus onnegative liberty,thefreedom from external coercion.As important as that is, its not the only type of freedom,Positive liberty is the ability to do things;being a centrist, as I am now, may involve a greater appreciation of this type of freedom, and winter sports can accentuate that viewpoint. On the snow, what you can and cant do dependsgreatlyon your abilities, the equipment and infrastructure you have access to, theenvironmentalconditions you face. You mightbe free from coercionon a deep-woods snowy trail, but thats far from all that matters.

In my youth, I ruminated glumly over the philosophical problem offree will. One day I walked home in a Queens snowstorm worried that every snowflake had a pre-fixed trajectory. Nobody knows whether thats true. Perhaps if Id been a skier or snowshoer back then, I wouldve looked at it differently: that the snow is a landscape for our freedom,somake the most of it.

Kenneth Silber is author ofIn DeWitts Footsteps: Seeing History on the Erie Canaland is on Twitter:@kennethsilber

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The Freedom of Snowshoe and Ski - Splice Today