Groom And Groove Little Nordic Ski Club Does Monster Job Of Maintaining Cross-Country Trail

This opening through the mountains only reaches 3,070 feet, hardly a heavenly height.

But this weekend it’s paradise to cross-country skiers like Evelyn Huender.

“It’s a beautiful day!” she said as she clicked her boots into skinny skis on Saturday.

Huender is president of the Panhandle Nordic Club. The Fourth of July Pass ski trail, 20 fast freeway miles from Coeur d’Alene, is the club’s home base.

Members built a warming hut here, and put a wood-burning stove in it. They also built a lean-to that’s a perfect lunch spot.

When vandals break a window in the hut, club members repair it. When a tree falls across the trail, they go at it with chain saws. In the summer they paint benches and clear brush.

With a membership of 40 families, Huender said, the club isn’t large. But its members are avid.

Trail grooming may be their most-appreciated volunteer effort.

Making those two parallel grooves in the snow requires packing the trail down with snowmobiles, then going back over the terrain again with a grooming machine pulled by a snowmobile.

Money for gasoline and machine maintenance comes from the sale of park-and-ski stickers.

The $15 stickers are available at ski shops and the Idaho Parks and Recreation Department. In Coeur d’Alene, they’re also sold at the Army Navy Store and Fins and Feathers.

Huender’s husband, Willem - who doesn’t even ski - is doing the grooming along with Van Bennett. The year’s first big snow came down so fast and thick that they asked for, and received, help from snowmobile club members.

“That’s really nice that we can work with the snowmobilers,” said Evelyn Huender, acknowledging that the two sports aren’t considered compatible. “It helps that they’re on the other side of the highway!”

At Fourth of July, the U.S. Forest Service put the ski trail south of Interstate 90, and the snowmobile parking and routes to the north.

The Nordic club meets monthly and schedules outings, including several overnights each year. Next weekend, for example, they’re going to Winthrop, Wash.

Some of the skiers, such as Louisiana native Sue Ferguson, didn’t take up the sport until moving to North Idaho.

Huender, who moved from her native Norway 26 years ago, can’t remember not skiing.

“Evelyn was born on skis,” Ferguson said with a laugh as she glided down the trail Saturday.

This is the site of the club’s annual fund-raiser, which is coming up Feb. 10.

It starts at 12:30 p.m., and costs $10 in advance, $15 for those who register that day.

Unofficially, the event is known as the poker ski.

But there’s no gambling involved, so it’s called the Best Hand Fun Ski, Huender said, “so we don’t get in trouble.”

Participants pick up playing cards as they pass checkpoints, and can win a pair of skis or other prizes.

There’s a separate race just for kids.

Cross-country skiing is getting more popular every year, Huender said.

It doesn’t require expensive lift tickets, like alpine skiing does, and “it’s excellent exercise.”

It’s also an exercise in frustration when conditions are bad.

Just two weeks ago, there was barely three inches of snow on the Fourth of July trails.

Huender skied anyway, but scratched her skis.

What’s a skier to do when there’s no snow?

“Cry. Cry and pray,” Huender said, as her prayers were answered with more big, falling flakes.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: SKI CLUB For information about the Panhandle Nordic Club or the Best Hand Fun Ski, call Evelyn Huender at (208) 762-3225 or Sue Ferguson at (208) 765-5086.