XC Skiing - Lapland Lake XC Ski Center

With all of the nearby places to cross-country ski for free, I've never been a big fan of the artificiality of the commercial areas. I am also the absolute epitome of "The Cheapskate Next Door", and don't pay for XC skiing unless it becomes absolutely necessary. Today was the day. We have no snow locally, the promised snowfall overnight that would have freshened up some nearby free areas never materialized, and Lapland Lake, near Northville, NY, got an inch or two over the past few days. They accomplish some amazing grooming with minimal snow. So Holly and I bit the bullet and headed off to Lapland for some desperation skiing.

Lapland often likes to use the word "Finn-tastic" to describe their conditions, but it wasn't really warranted today. Mostly, the new snow had been packed and rolled, and skiing outside the tracks was really not bad. But the tracks were old and a little crusty around the edges and needed to be recut. In fairness, there probably still isn't enough snow even here to do that, and the skiing was still arguably the best around in this low-snow winter. We did a couple of loops before lunch, and then a couple more after lunch before calling it a day.

At 1.5 hours away, and $20 a pop, I'm not going to do this often. But today it was the right choice.