Staying in shape during the change of seasons

Winter's just ahead, so why not make the transition fun? If there's snow on the slopes or the cross-country trail, use it to warm up your Telemark, cross-country skiing or snowshoeing muscles, then recover with a dry-land hike, bike ride or skate. (Tim Jones photo)

Early December is a particularly interesting time of year for active outdoors enthusiasts here in the Northeast, especially during a year like this one, when the weather has been unseasonably mild.

Lots of people (myself among them) simply can't wait for winter. Bring on the snow and the ice!

But the transition from bare ground to snow can be a lot of fun, too.

I've been in the mountains the past few days, lured by the narrow ribbons of man-made snow that Okemo Mountain Resort in Ludlow, Vermont and Bretton Woods in Bretton Woods, N.H have blown on their slopes. Okay, so I'll admit I'm rushing winter, but I have an excuse.

I believe deep in my heart that Mother Nature is going to be as generous with snow this winter as she was generous with rain last winter. She has to, to balance things out . . . I hope. I want to be ready.

Last Christmas, I got some gently-used Karhu ( www.karhu.com  ) "Grizzly" Telemark skis and, along with a used pair of Garmont ( www.garmont.com  ) Syner G Telemark boots and Black Diamond ( www.blackdiamondequipment.com ) climbing skins.

As a result, I'm completely besotted with the idea of blazing my own ski trails away from lifts. All last winter, whenever we had soft snow on the resort slopes (which wasn't all that often), I was attempting to learn how to turn on Telemark gear so, when deep snow came, I could explore backcountry skiing.

The deep snow never happened.

So here I am this year, still learning (actually still looking like a one-man comedy routine) and having a wonderful time doing it . . .

But you can only take so much winter at the start of the season. You need to transition slowly.

The first few days of the snow season you can only make so many ski or snowboard turns, kick-and-glide or skate on cross country gear so many times, or take so many steps on snowshoes before your thighs are reduced to quivering masses of a gelatin-like substance that in no way resembles muscle.

No matter how much cross training you've done since the snow melted last spring, you probably aren't ready to enjoy a whole day of winter when the snow first arrives.

Fortunately, the weather this year has been absolutely glorious for hiking and biking.

So what you do is attack winter head on for a while, then allow your muscles to recover by going for a gentle hike or a bike ride.

I know my sweetheart Marilyn and I absolutely needed to hike a little to stretch out muscles after our first turns of winter. The afternoons were sunny and warm, the hiking trails were empty and the views at this time of year were particularly expansive and uplifting.

While we were in the mountains, we saw lots of folks prepared to get a double shot of outdoor fun. There were people hiking off their Thanksgiving feasts on bare trails and snowshoeing up the slopes. We saw cars with mountain bikes and skis or snowboards on top heading into the parking lots at the ski areas. A skate skier we saw practicing at Bretton Woods was out running a little later.

They were transitioning to winter and having fun with it.