Over the years, the club has received occasional requests for lessons from people wanting a wide variety of assistance. Our club is relatively small and our snopark has widely varying conditions – but we also have a number of helpful members with significant skiing experience. This set of pages is an attempt to find a way to help people learn more about Nordic skiing and to improve their skills.

Nordic skiing is not difficult. It provides a wonderful opportunity to get outside during the winter and to enjoy the outdoors and the snow while getting some fun exercise at the same time. But there are some skills involved and getting better arguably makes it more fun! So get out on skis and have fun, but consider three paths to improving your skills:

I. The internet. My kids say that they learn everything from Youtube. While that’s not really true, there is a lot of good information out there. The following pages have a number of links to instructional videos. There are many more out there – but the ones listed appear to be appropriate for the topic mentioned (and we’re trying not to swamp you with too many choices).

II. Lessons. Our club is not large enough to support regularly scheduled lessons. Conditions and other commitments mean that we can’t set up a series of half day lessons that will take you from a beginner to a world class Nordic skier. But sometimes a half hour spent with someone more experienced than yourself can help answer a specific need of yours and allow you to work towards the next level. Depending on the level of demand, we might be able to provide that half hour. Our hope is to have a number of instructors, one of whom might meet you for 30 minutes at the snopark before they went out for their own ski.

We’re still considering whether these lessons will be available to all – or just club members. It might be that the very introductory ones will be open to all, but the more ‘serious’ ones will be limited.

III. Serious Lessons. Other, larger ski areas and organizations offer more extensive lessons, but they are further from Bellingham. You might investigate Stevens Pass, Methow Valley, Hollyburn (BC), and Leavenworth / Lake Wenatchee.

Back to Lessons – Table of Contents