By Peter Kray

Cross country skiing is almost undoubtedly winter’s original snow sliding sport, a method of winter travel that transcends the recreational amenities of lifts and slopes.

Some historians believe the use of skis to migrate, hunt, and explore may have even predated the wheel as a vehicle of community and commerce. But recreationally, in terms of pure participation, the number of cross country participants has long lagged behind that of gravity-fed alpine skiers and snowboarders in the United States.

In the instruction community, there is a strong sense that reaching out to more potential snowsports participants where they are – at parks and opens spaces where they don’t have to travel very far or buy lift tickets – is an untapped avenue to introducing more people to winter’s outdoor benefits.

Which is why PSIA-AASI tapped into its National Team Project (NTP) initiative to send former PSIA Cross Country Coach Scott McGee and current team member Justin Arndt to the Cross Country Ski Areas Association Annual Conference in Soldier Hollow, Utah, earlier this spring to learn more about how professional teaching can help grow participation.

“The National Team represents snowsports education at its highest level, and as spokespeople our partnerships are vital to the growth of the sport supporting events like the CCSAA,” said PSIA-AASI Director of Education Dave Schuiling. “This kind of support is exactly what the National Team Project is all about – utilizing team members to grow the sport and create excitement about on-snow learning.”

A New Generation of Collaboration

The three-day conference began with snowmaking and grooming workshops and socials followed by presentations, breakouts, and a vendor expo, allowing for owners, operators, and suppliers from across North America to connect, learn, and share knowledge about how to support and grow cross country skiing.

“It was pretty cool to get so many schools from every region in one place,” Arndt said of the event. “There’s a couple of groups of cross country ski schools: those that are already deeply engrossed in PSIA, those that didn’t know that PSIA was an option or opportunity, and those that have their own programs. In short, there are a lot of opportunities to capitalize on to grow our numbers and help ski schools get education.”

Arndt added that CCSAA believes that there’s a business opportunity for cross country centers to create a better, larger, and more robust experience with programming and stronger ski schools.

“So many ski schools have programs that are bare bones,” he said. “They’re serving the beginner skier and that’s it. Ski schools have the potential to serve local communities and tourists with more diverse programming and better educated instructors.”

As to the actual state of the market, Arndt said that cross country is growing, but there are also a lot of skiers who have room for improvement. Oftentimes, people don’t feel the need to take lessons, but that may change if there are better instructors and better programs.

Better Instructors = Better Skiers

According to McGee, there are things that small nordic centers can’t do, like promote cross country skiing to a nationwide audience. However, CCSAA has the wherewithal to help resorts work together to achieve larger objectives that can help the industry, nordic operations, cross country instructors, and ultimately the skiing public, as more financially successful businesses are able to improve products, facilities, offerings, and amenities.

“Some nordic centers have cracked the code on how to optimize profitability of the school aspect of their operation, but the vast majority have not,” McGee said. “Structural changes that improve yields for the school and the front-line instructor alike stand to revolutionize the way nordic ski schools operate.”

He believes that there’s potential to produce better cross country skiers because they’d be learning from better instructors. And this could have a cascading effect at all levels, including at the world cup level, because the abilities and understanding of skiers would be elevated.

“The more we grow our cross country membership, the more continuing education events and assessments we’ll be able to hold,” he said. “And making PSIA more recognized in the public eye because it exists in more schools around the country elevates our reputation and reach.” 

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NTP, which helped fund Arndt and McGee’s participation in the conference, is a donor-funded initiative to ensure that PSIA-AASI remains the best of the best through increased public awareness, professional development, and quality instruction.

NTP leverages the PSIA-AASI National Team above and beyond its historical reach through more interactions with members, more time at member schools, a new focus on leadership and pipeline development, and more exposure to NTP’s key initiatives.