The Jackson Ski Touring Foundation in Jackson, N.H., recently redesigned a few trails to meet race standards set by the International Ski Federation (FIS). While most cross-country skiers don’t care whether or not the national championships or Junior Olympics come to town, the redesign does have benefits for recreational skiers. The redesigned trails are now wider — almost 30 feet wide on one loop, which means you and three friends can ski side-by-side. And these trails don’t go up, up, up, then down, down, down.
“There’s nothing worse than having to work to get up some long hill and then have some long boring descent,” said former Olympic biathlete and coach John Morton, who helped Jackson Ski Touring Foundation executive director Thom Perkins redesign the trails. Morton is the founder of Morton Trails in Thetford Center, Vt., and was in Jackson on Jan. 9-10 speaking at a ski writers’ meeting.

On the redesigned five-kilometer loop, which leaves from the fields below the Eagle Mountain House in Jackson, a short but stiff climb on the Christmas Tree Farm trail — with one whoop-dee-do downhill — took me to a trail named simply John, named after a local landowner. John rolls through an open pasture with views of snow-frosted Mt. Washington, then climbs and descends gently through a pine forest. The Wave and Henry, named after John’s brother, climb deeper into the forest. But only near the top of Henry did I wonder where the top was.
“You make the climbs subtle so people don’t really have a sense of how much they’re climbing,” said Morton. “And you make the descents worth it.”
The Wave back to the Eagle Mountain fields descends like a mini roller coaster through the woods — “one of the most enjoyable descents on cross-country skis anywhere in the northeast; it’s pure, simple fun” is how Morton describes it. Wide, smooth, curvy, and rolling, it was worth every huff and puff up Henry. The Wave was originally cut in 1988, but Morton and Perkins knew they had to keep its descent as part of the redesign because it fit with Morton’s trail-design philosophy: “to make the downhill enough fun so that people will want to do it again, even though they know they’re going to have to climb to get back up there.”
And that’s exactly what I did.