Cross-Country

Backcountry Skiing: Skills for Ski Touring and Ski Mountaineering (Mountaineers Outdoor Expert Series)

Travel safe with the intermediate-to-advanced techniques described in Backcountry Skiing: Skills for Ski Touring and Ski Mountaineering by Martin Volken Topics include roped climbing, anchors, ice axe usage, winter camping and more Features: Co-authored by Scott Schell and Margaret Wheeler Paperback Specifications: Pages: 288 pages

Serious Training for Endurance Athletes

Whether you swim, run, cycle, cross-country ski, or compete in multievents, SERIOUS Training for Serious Athletes is the tool you need to become the best possible endurance athlete. Use these 7 components of the SERIOUS system to enhance your training:

Speed workouts

Endurance or Easy Distance training

Race/Pace sessions to test your fitness level

Intervals of high-intensity workouts on flat terrain

Overdistance sessions of prolonged, low-level activity for base building

Up/Vertical intervals to enhance mental and physical toughness Strength workouts for overall and sport-specific conditioning

SERIOUS Training for Serious Athletes shows you how to design a personalized year-round training plan by modifying the SERIOUS plan designed for your sport. You'll finally have a sure-fire method to reach peak racing condition safely and predictably.

SERIOUS Training for Serious Athletes provides the coach, trainer and athlete with solid guidelines for designing personalized training programs. Author Rob Sleamaker has analyzed the world's best systems of endurance sport training and devised this program by combining the most effective elements of each. SERIOUS Training for Serious Athletes includes sport-specific training recommendations for cyclists, distance runners, swimmers, canoeists, biathletes, triathletes, and all other endurance athletes.

55 Ways to the Wilderness in Southcentral Alaska

Fifty Hikes in Central New York: Hikes and Backpacking Trips from the Western Adirondacks to the Finger Lakes (50 Hikes in Louisiana: Walks, Hikes, & Backpacks in the Bayou State)

Exploring the Yellowstone Backcountry: A Guide to the Hiking Trails of Yellowstone With Additional Sections on Canoeing, Bicycling, and Cross-Country Skiing (Third Edition)

This comprehensive guidebook covers one of the last large, intact ecosystems remaining in the temperate zones. This uncommonly beautiful area includes a wide range of natural attractions, from rugged mountain peaks and spectacular waterfalls to spruce and fir forests to fossil forests and geyser basins.

Here is all the information needed to select a trip or trail in the spectacular Yellowstone backcountry, including:
-- An overview of the region's natural history, including forest fire ecology
-- Tips on safety, clothing and equipment, weather conditions, backcountry regulations, and much more
-- Where to find the best hiking, backpacking, bicycling, canoeing, and cross-country ski touring routes
-- Best places to see elk, moose, bison, and other wildlife
-- Foreword by Mary Carr of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition

50 Classic Backcountry Ski and Snowboard Summits in California: Mount Shasta to Mount Whitney

50 Classic Backcountry Ski and Snowboard Summits in California offers some of the finest ski and snowboard descents in California, ranging over a 550-mile span from the Cascade Range in the north to the Sierra Nevada in the south. Grouped into nine geographical regions, these summits represent the best of the best-from well-known destinations to more remote areas to a sampling of the highest peaks. Historical anecdotes about each region round out the guide for an entertaining and informative read.

Trips range from a half day to seven days, and while all can be completed on either snowboard or skis, the author makes specific recommendations for the best snowboard descents. Each trip description includes a complete narrative of the ascent and descent plus information on trip highlights, trip duration, level of difficulty, mileage, elevation gain, and access. The appendix includes a list of California's highest peaks.

This is the most complete information available in one volume, featuring the widest selection of premier ski mountaineering and snowboard routes in California. With 70 b&w photos and 60 maps.

Trail Atlas of Michigan: Nature, Mountain Biking, Hiking Cross Country Skiing (Maps & Atlases)

Shawangunks Trail Companion: A Complete Guide to Hiking, Mountain Biking, Cross-Country Skiing, and More Only 90 Miles from New York City

This comprehensive trail guide describes hiking, mountain biking, and cross-country skiing routes on more than 200 miles of trails in New York State's legendary Shawangunk Mountain Range.

The 50-mile-long Shawangunk Ridge features some of the most interesting and spectacular scenery in the Northeast. This well-known landform is located less than 90 miles from New York City and less than a day's drive from more than 40 million people. Much of the ridge is open to the public as preserve land and state park. The combination of beauty, countless recreational possibilities, and easy access make this one of the Northeast region's most popular weekend and vacation destinations.

It is estimated that nearly half a million people visit the Shawangunks every year. Many come to hike, mountain bike, or cross-country ski the more than 200 miles of trails that crisscross the ridge. Now Jeffrey Perls has created this comprehensive handbook and guide, detailing how to get there and what to do on nearly every mile of trail. The Shawangunks Trail Companion is the first and only book to provide both a thorough description of the landform as well as a complete guide to its trails. 22 black & white photographs, 15 maps, index.

The Vail Hiker and Ski Touring Guide

The all-new 2001 edition of The Vail Hiker expands the book from 40 to 50 trails. Among the exciting new trails are a wild and pristine valley the author calls Booth Creek Basin and the isolated but beautiful Crater Lake. Original Vail Hiker trails are revised and updated to provide accurate trail information. The all-new guidebook is printed on a new high quality paper which makes maps easy to read.

Long Distance: A Year of Living Strenuously

At the age of 37, bestselling author and journalist Bill McKibben stepped out of the ordinary routine of his life to spend a year in "real training" as a cross-country skier. With the help of a trainer-slash-guru, McKibben took on a regimen equivalent to that of an Olympic endurance athlete's, running and skiing for hours every day in preparation for a series of grueling long-distance ski races. What prompted this successful writer with an admitted aversion to competitive sports to push himself so hard, for so long?

Partly it was pure selfishness; after a decade as an environmental writer and activist, I needed a break from failing to save the world. But mostly it was curiosity that drove me. By year's end I hoped I'd have more sense of what life lived through the body felt like.

If Long Distance begins as a story about the transformation of the body and what it means to challenge one's physical limits, it evolves into a thoughtful lesson about a wholly different kind of endurance. Halfway through McKibben's training, his father was diagnosed with the most virulent form of brain cancer. As McKibben was reaching peak condition, his father's life lurched toward an end, forcing McKibben to snap out of his self-inflicted self-absorption. He had tried to think of endurance as "the ability to fight through the drama of pain. But now I understood it, too, as a kind of elegance, a lightness that could only come from such deep comfort with yourself that you began to forget about yourself." And the elegance of Long Distance is in its ultimate lesson that each of us has a mind, a body, and a spirit, and we must find our strength in all three realms. --Svenja Soldovieri

In his late thirties, celebrated essayist, journalist, and author Bill McKibben -- never much of an athlete -- decided the time had come for him
to really test his body. Cross-country skiing his challenge of choice, he lived the fantasy of many amateur athletes and trained -- with the help of
a coach/guru -- nearly full-time, putting in hours and miles typical of an Olympic hopeful. For one vigorous year, which would culminate in a
series of grueling, long-distance races, McKibben experienced his body's rhythms and possibilities as never before.

But the year also brought tragedy to McKibben and his family as his father developed a life-threatening illness. Forcing a deeper exploration of both body and spirit, the arrival of this illness transforms McKibben's action-packed memoir into a moving account of two men coming to terms with the limits of the flesh.

The author of such impassioned and groundbreaking books as The End of Nature and The Age of Missing Information, Bill McKibben is re-nowned as an original thinker. Here, writing with his trademark honesty and insight, he once again creates a provocative and unconventional book, a fascinating portrait of a man in midlife pushing his body and soul to the breaking point -- and learning some unexpected truths along the way.

The bestselling author of The End of Nature and Hundred-Dollar Holiday presents a provocative, unconventional book: approaching middle age and never much of an athlete, he trains to be a world-class skier and learns some unexpected lessons about his body -- and life. A celebrated essayist, journalist, and author, Bill McKibben is renowned as an original thinker. Here, writing with his trademark honesty and insight, he documents his year as an impostor of sorts in the demanding world of competitive skiing. The result is a fascinating portrait of a man in mid-life pushing his body and soul to the breaking point. McKibben decided, in his late thirties, that the time had come to really test his body. Cross-country skiing his challenge of choice, he lived the fantasy of many amateur athletes and trained -- with the help of a coach/guru -- nearly full time, putting in hours and miles typical of an Olympic athlete. McKibben's year would culminate in a series of long-distance, grueling cross-country races as he experienced his body's rhythms and possibilities like never before. But the year also brought tragedy to McKibben and his family as his father developed an illness that would eventually cause his death. Forcing a further exploration of both body and spirit, this illness transforms McKibben's action-packed memoir into a moving account of two men coming to terms with the limits of the flesh. Long Distance will appeal to athletes of all types -- from the casual health-club member to the world-class competitor -- and to anyone seeking physical or spiritual renewal.