Are snowshoes displacing cross-country skis as the hip mode of recreational transportation in winter?

If so, I applaud it.

I have spent an immense number of man hours (and children hours) trying to make nordic skiing work.

With rare exceptions, I just messed up my clothes with ski wax and had to absorb huge laundry bills in addition paying for the equipment.

Your Scribe remembers the era of waxes, and klisters, and tune-ups that the advertisters said would enable you to glide from Kennebunk to Cornish without breaking stride.

But it never worked that way.

I tripped. I fell. I was stopped by fallen trees or obdurate snowdrifts.

It wasn't fun.

I started nordic in the mid-'70s.

It took about a decade for me to figure it out, but you need really good trail preparation to sustain a steady pace.

I used to go through the woods, or over golf courses. But if the terrain hadn't been packed by a plow or snowmobile, you couldn't make much forward progress.

Also, I discovered alpine is much more fun.

And in the late '70s and '80s, Sunday River, Sugarloaf, Mt. Abram, Saddleback, Squaw, and others invested in snowmaking.

These resorts could finally guarantee snow every weekend in winter, and as a result I left the nordic gear disappear in the detritus of the cellar.

Now snowshoeing seems to be getting a promotional push.

L.L. Bean, and its ambitious competitor, the Kittery Trading Post, have set up special venues to sell snowshoes, poles, shoes and many other Town-and-Country-like accoutrements.

Snowshoes have been around forever, of course.

But I am pleased to see their rise in visibility.

Snowshoes are perfect for my camp in Franklin County, which gets a great deal of snow.

I look forward to this winter when I can snowshoe down to the river, and perhaps do some fishing through the ice of the Sandy River.

I could never do that on cross-country skis!

(New topic: I have been in a state of shock since fellow blogger Colleen Stone resigned her position at Maine Today.

She is moving from Portland to Jersey City, N.J.

What is wrong with this picture?)

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