Sometime around 2002 I happened upon a dusty pair of wooden Nordic skis for sale at a thrift store for $5. They looked as though they’d been languishing in a corner of someone’s garage for a few decades. I wasn’t sure what it might entail to make them usable, but they looked cool and were an excellent price. I had modern ski boots that could work with the bindings already mounted on the skis, so I brought them home to make them either part of my ski quiver or else wall décor. At that point it could have gone either way.

They had a serious layer of grime, which I removed with Murphy’s Oil Soap, and I had to do a lot of research into the care of wooden skis. This will come as no surprise to anyone who took up Nordic skiing prior to 1970, but I initially didn’t realize that I would need to acquire liquid pine tar, paint it onto the bottoms of my skis, and then carefully (and briefly) light my wooden skis on fire with a plumber’s torch. It’s a delicate and potentially dangerous process, and I discovered I loved it. While I did add a couple minor scorches to my ski bases, I didn’t light my hair on fire, so I called it a success.

In February 2003, I decided to enter the annual Mount Spokane Langlauf 10K Cross Country Ski Race on my wooden skis. I had been a participant in the race for several years using my modern skis and generally placing in my age group. But Langlauf has been in existence since 1979, and it celebrates its early history each year by having a separate category for competitors on wooden skis who dress up in woolen clothing, all of which I thought might be fun to do as a lark, at least once.

That first year, and several subsequent years, I won the women’s wooden ski division. It’s only fair to mention that I was sometimes the only participant in said division, but I also generally continued to place in my age group despite skiing on equipment that was a couple age groups ahead of me. The days of wooden skis making an appearance in international competition are long-gone, but it’s still possible to make these antique skis semi-competitive at the local citizen race level.

Unfortunately, like so many other fun community events, the 2021 Mount Spokane Langlauf race has been cancelled. Event organizers will be marking the course for the month of February, and area Nordic skiers can opt to ski the 10K route on their own and even choose to make a donation to the nonprofit Spokane Nordic Ski Association to help support trail maintenance.

If you have some old wooden skis hanging decoratively on a wall, consider taking them down and lighting them briefly and carefully on fire, before taking them to Mount Spokane for a trail tour this winter.

Holly Weiler, OTO Hike of the Month columnist, can be found skiing the Langlauf course and beyond on a regular basis and plans to take the wooden skis out for several tours this winter.

The post Mountain Artifacts: Wooden Nordic Skis appeared first on Out There Venture.

Backpack, tent, sleeping bag, down coat—all of it was back home in Washington. I left it there when I came to St. Louis to visit my folks for the holidays, not expecting a college friend to invite me on an impromptu overnight backpacking trip in the Ozark Mountains. 

But I wasn’t about to turn down an old friend, and so the gear would have to sort itself out. I rummaged through my parent’s basement and found my dad’s old external frame pack from his Boy Scout days—1960s vintage. Then I dug up the foam pad and sleeping bag that had served me so well during my own stint as a Scout in middle school. After I scrounged an old nylon coat from the attic, the ensemble was complete. All I needed now was food, which I grabbed from a gas station en route to the trailhead—a footlong Italian meat sub, paired with a Clif Bar. 

From the trailhead, we hiked to an ice-choked creek and followed it upstream past a line of icicle-covered limestone cliffs. We picked our way across rocky glades of block-shaped rhyolite boulders and crossed a log bridge to our campsite beside a tiny waterfall. For dinner, I ate half the sub. The next morning, we watched the sun come up from an open bluff-top vista, and I ate the other half for breakfast. 

We had a blast. But in the eye of the outdoor recreation media, we were pariahs. 

“We will not run photos of hikers wearing jeans, and sneakers, nor clothing that is out of date (more than 5 years old),” read the photography guidelines for submissions to “Backpacker,” one of the nation’s most popular outdoors magazines. Even if I had submitted my Cathedral Canyon photos, they wouldn’t have stood a chance in the magazine. We violated every single rule. 

You don’t need to be wealthy to enjoy the outdoors. But national media outlets—fueled by an unquenchable thirst for advertising revenue—don’t want you to believe that. They want you to think that the only people who are truly “outdoorsy” are thin, athletic 20-somethings wearing thousand-dollar outfits and Instagram-worthy smiles. They’ve perpetuated a lie, and it’s hurting our sport. 

I’m as guilty as anyone. I’ve wasted countless hours wandering aimlessly through online gear stores. I’ve sifted through hundreds of listings for jackets, hats, tents, and sleeping bags, mistakenly believing that these items are the key to unlocking happiness outdoors. 

If only I had this rain jacket, or that backpack, I say to myself, imagine all the things I’d do… imagine all the places I’d go. 

It’s a misplaced idea. True, many outdoor pursuits do require a lot of stuff, and having good gear can make a trip more enjoyable. But generally, I already own that gear. It’s not brand new, but it works. And if I’m unhappy with my life as an outdoor recreationalist, it’s probably not because I don’t own the latest jacket. More likely it’s because I’m spending too little time in the mountains. 

After all, expensive gear by itself won’t bring you to the top of that Facebook-famous peak—despite what the manufacturers want you to believe.  

John Muir, for one, didn’t have the benefit of space-age insulation or waterproof, breathable fabric, and he never had a problem having fun outside. To prepare for a long backcountry trip, Muir simply “rolled up some bread and tea in a pair of blankets with some sugar and a tin cup and set off.” This is ultralight backpacking, before the dawn of Gore-Tex. 

Ultimately, the outdoors is for everyone. Come as you are with what you have, and leave with a better appreciation for the world we live in. 

Chances are, you’re going to encounter an outdoor gear ad in the near future. You’ll probably see a happy looking person with a lot of expensive gear. There’s nothing wrong with happy people, or expensive gear. Just do me a favor—don’t assume they’re related.

Paul Chisholm is currently training for a 50-mile trail race from his new home in the Black Hills of South Dakota. He wrote about Oregon’s Wallowa Mountains for the October 2019 issue.  

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