Thanks for a great season of Nordic skiing at Mount Washington

by Keith and Heather Nicol

 It was a sad day when we cleaned out our ski locker at Raven Lodge on Monday, April 5 to end the 2021 cross country ski season. Raven Lodge is the base of operations of cross country skiing and snow shoeing at Mount Washington near Courtenay, B.C on Vancouver Island. The year saw lots of snow and there were 2 plus meters on the cross country ski trails on closing day. It was a strange year with Covid 19 lurking in the background but you couldn`t get a better outdoor activity that was also easy to socially distance with than cross country skiing. We managed over 44 days of skiing and we seemed to luck out with the weather since we ate our lunch on the picnic tables outside of Raven Lodge on most days and it was quite comfortable. We brought seat pads with us and they worked well when the seats had abit of snow on them or it was cool out. 

 

   I was involved in teaching cross country skiing and even with a facemask this seemed to work smoothly.   There seemed to be lots of new skiers from all over Vancouver Island in lessons this year and it will be interesting to see if they continue with the sport after Covid 19 hopefully becomes a distant memory. We also ran a CANSI Level 1 ski instructors course and Mount Washington now has 3 new nordic ski instructors. If becoming a nordic ski instructor is of interest to you contact me at k2nicol@gmail.com since we are planning another course for the 2021-22 season. And of course once you were skiing on the trails you could put the mask away and it was just like a non Covid winter day.

    
So next year if you have thought about trying cross country skiing or snowshoeing then check out Raven Lodge at Mount Washington. They have over 50 km of trail groomed for skating and classic skiing as well as many snowshoe trails. Raven Lodge has great mountain views and inside you can have a bite to eat, book rentals and lessons, and buy day tickets.  Lets hope next winter brings the same great skiing to Mount Washington but without the Covid 19.   For more information see: https://www.mountwashington.ca/