Cross Country skiing in South Western Saskatchewan comes with unique weather challenges. The last two years we had to cancel Embrace Winter due to the lack of snow. This year we had enough snow to ski on, but had to contend with frigid temperatures, hovering around -40’C a few days before World Snow Day. The January 18/19 weekend forecast called for a short warming trend, with temperatures expected to be up to -15. Late Sunday morning the temperature rose to -18, and held on just long enough to have a successful World Snow Day.
With the sub-zero temperatures we not able to get our trails groomed until after Embrace Winter had started, which meant a couple of club members went out and set a classic track where we could before our groomer was up and running.
By the time the day was over we calculated we had 50+ brave souls out for a ski before the temperature dropped again. With the support of Cross Country Saskatchewan, Hodgeville and Maverick Schools, with the Chinook School Division, and the SCNSC’s small amount of equipment we own, we had all equipment for people to borrow.
With the help of our volunteers we had a fire going so our guests were able to warm up, roast hotdogs, and/or drinking hot chocolate in a treed sheltered area near the Chinook Golf Course club house.
As the day progressed the wind picked up, and by late afternoon the temperature was beginning to drop, so we ended our successful World Snow Day a little earlier than planned, but after a great deal more success that we had anticipated given the frigid weather. Here’s to World Snow Day 2021, and hopefully we’ll have both snow and decent winter temperatures.
- Free food and drink
- Free skis snowboards use