JACKSON, Wyo. — It’s cross-country ski season, also known as Nordic skiing, the oldest form of skiing to exist.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary says that the word “ski” comes from Old Norse and means “stick of wood,” and the Olympics confirm that cross-country skiing preceded all other types of skiing.
According to the History Channel and the Olympics, Nordic skiing started out as a mode of transportation in Scandinavia to help cover the long distances between the small, isolated communities. The History Channel writes that the oldest known ski was found in a peat bog in Hoting, Sweden, and is believed to have been made around 1767.
“It is virtually certain that a form of skiing has been an integral part of life in colder countries for thousands of years,” the History Channel says on its website.
In the second half of the 1800s, cross-country skiing gained traction as a form of military training in addition to transportation in Scandinavia. This was about the time that cross-country skiing diverged from the newly pioneered downhill, or alpine skiing, when Norwegian legend Sondre Norheim popularized skis with curved sides and the Telemark and Christiania (slalom) turns starting in the 1850s.
It wasn’t until 1901 when cross-country skiing transitioned from fully functional to more fun, when the first Nordic ski competition occurred in Oslo, Norway, and included cross-country skiing in addition to downhill.
Twenty-three years later, in 1924, cross-country skiing was included in the first Winter Olympics in Chamonix, France. Popularity grew so much so that by the 1950s, there were what the History Channel calls “significant developments” being made in cross-country ski equipment, like the introduction of lightweight skis and synthetic boots.
With new aerodynamic designs, the Cross-Country Skiing World Cup was established in 1981 to formalize a series of international races that had already been taking place.
According to the Norwegian Heritage Center, Norwegian immigrants to the U.S. brought their skis with them and established the tradition in America. An immigrant known as “Snowshoe” Thompson became infamous in California in the 1850s because he would ski between mining towns during winter throughout western California to Idaho bringing mail, goods and medicines for 20 years.
“Jackson Hole isn’t as famous for its Nordic skiing as it is for its alpine skiing, but it should be.”
Visit Jackson Hole
In Wyoming, Visit Jackson Hole writes that “Jackson Hole isn’t as famous for its Nordic skiing as it is for its alpine skiing, but it should be.” Jackson Hole has more than 200 miles of groomed cross-country ski trails in Grand Teton National Park (GTNP), the Bridger-Teton National Forest and Nordic skiing centers.
JH Nordic is a local resource for grooming schedules, trail conditions, trip reports and GPS tracks for cross-country skiing. The website allows skiers to search for trails by distance, location, difficulty, dog friendliness, grooming status and what user groups might share the trails such as fat bikers or snowmobilers.
