Pole Position Near Tahoe’s Royal Gorge

My son and I had tried cross-country skiing once--for about an hour on a trip more than 10 years ago. All I remembered was not getting far but still finding solitude, the only sound coming from my pounding heart.

For my son, now 21, the memories of our brief outing were even dimmer.

I persuaded Joe that we should try again at Royal Gorge, the largest cross-country ski resort in North America, with more than 220 miles of trails for skiers of all abilities.

That is how we came to be among a group of acolytes on a Saturday morning a few weeks ago. In a relatively flat, snow-covered meadow at 7,000 feet in the Sierra, we waited to receive wisdom from our cross-country ski instructor, Michael.

Michael gestured toward an accomplished skier gliding across the meadow on effortless strides that seemed a good five yards long. Before I could study him in detail, he had disappeared into a stand of evergreens.

“Notice how he swung his arms like a monkey?” Michael asked.

For the next hour and a half our group of 10 tried to imitate monkeys.

Michael was patient as we negotiated again and again the same small piece of terrain, learning the basic stride--knees bent and arms swinging--then added poles to propel us along.

It wasn’t difficult, and before long Joe was setting speed records for our group. Even the most uncoordinated among us was more or less gliding on machine-groomed tracks that were a ski-width wide and shoulder width apart.

Joe and I had flown into Reno the night before, rented a car and driven about 45 miles west on Interstate 80 to the Rainbow Lodge at Royal Gorge, near the spot where the Donner party got stuck. It was easy to see why they were forced to halt their journey west. Snow was piled above our heads on both sides of the road.

The wood-and-stone Rainbow Lodge looked charming from the outside, and its public rooms, with lacquered pine log furniture and a stone fireplace, were appealing.

But we were a tad disappointed in the size of our $125-per-night room, which had a double bed. I had been assured the room would have enough space for a second bed.

But the flimsy rollaway the inn provided left no place to walk, and we had to laugh when some of its wooden slats fell to the floor, along with Joe, as soon as he lay down. Because the inn had no other cots available, Joe slept on the mattress on the floor.

Breakfast, included in the room rate, was better. At the inn’s spacious, stone-walled Engadine Cafe, service was attentive, the table formally set and the food plentiful: a choice of eggs, pancakes, French toast or hot cereal, along with fresh fruit, muffins, juice and coffee.

The inn and the jumping-off point for day touring, Summit Station, are connected by a winding 13 1/2-mile back-country trail rated for experts. That left us out. We drove, along the way passing opportunities for downhill skiing and dog sledding.

At Summit Station we signed up for the Super Package: rented cross-country skis, boots (which turned out to be more like comfortable slippers than the hard plastic kind downhill skiers use) and poles, a one-day trail pass and a group lesson for about $49 per person.

Most of the employees, we noticed, were Australians. They explained that they were ski lovers who come to Royal Gorge to work and ski when it’s summer Down Under.

Our instructor, Michael, was one of the few employees from the States.

After we had mastered the flats, he had us move to a little hill.

The big difference between cross-country and downhill skiing, I soon found out, is that cross-country is a lot more work. No ski lifts take you up the hills (although Royal Gorge does have some tow ropes for the really steep ones). Mostly, you self-propel.

Michael taught us how to point the tops of our skis together and walk on their inside edges on inclines. Then he showed us the proper tuck position for zooming down.

After teaching a little more about how to brake and turn, he said we were ready to tackle trails on our own.

A few in the group were skeptical and decided to abort, but we were game.

Quite a few signposted trails start at the meadow. Michael suggested we take the one named Yuba; he said it was intermediate, but the trail map listed it as easy.

It turned out to be a sufficiently challenging five-mile round trip over gently rolling terrain, through a glorious forest of snow-laden firs and past spectacular mountain views.

I imagined relaxing--being at one with the forest--as I moved, but alas, this was not to be. I had to concentrate too much on swinging my arms like a monkey.

The trail, like all others at the resort, was groomed. The width of a fire road, it had a pair of machine-carved ski tracks on each side. The middle was reserved for something I’d never seen before: ski skaters, who use a side-to-side motion similar to that used by ice and in-line skaters.

Accomplished Nordic skiers who, darn it, did not seem to be breathing heavily also passed by. Some were even pulling kids on sleds.

After about 50 minutes and several spills and stops to catch my breath, we reached Wilderness Lodge, the more expensive accommodation at Royal Gorge, located at a trail junction in the middle of the forest.

Guests are taken to Wilderness Lodge by motorized sleigh and plied with breakfast, lunch buffets and dinner by candlelight for $169 daily per person on weekends. They enjoy the luxury of skiing right outside their door and returning to a sauna or a dip in a hot tub.

We, however, just had sandwiches at the lodge’s cafe and headed back. It had started snowing steadily, but that proved no obstacle. We made better time even though the way back was more uphill.

For a diversion, Joe decided to take one of the tow-rope lifts up a particularly steep hill. I watched as he took a few spills coming down. But he was determined, and after a few tries he made it without a fall.

Not me. I was determined to make it through the weekend without getting hurt. When we got back to Summit Station, we were tired, but it seemed too early to call it a day.

We spent another hour or so practicing, me on the hill Michael had started us on (which now seemed tame), Joe on another, steeper hill, where experts were practicing swift, sharp turns.

Back at Rainbow Lodge we compared notes on what ached, read and took naps before dinner at the Engadine Cafe.

Joe had French onion soup and veal scaloppine. I had a spinach salad with goat cheese, walnuts and thin slices of Asian pear, followed by duck breast with lingonberry sauce, which turned out to be overly ambitious. But a nice bottle of Merlot and the cozy setting more than made up for it.

There are no televisions or guest phones at the inn--no distractions other than board games, conversation and a crackling fire. We whiled away the evening talking, playing Scrabble and finding out how much I don’t know about popular culture, according to the makers of Trivial Pursuit.

Then we headed to bed. The inn had provided a new rollaway, but it didn’t look any more stable than the first, so Joe hauled its mattress to the floor again.

Rain fell the next morning. We looked for an expert--someone with his own skis--and asked what to expect. He said dryly that we should expect to get wet. Other than that, he said, skiing would be fine. So we rented skis and bought passes for a second day on the trails.

Royal Gorge, at least on this Sunday, seemed a different place--almost deserted. We tackled the Yuba trail again and then others. The forest looked different too. The snow was still deep, but the rain had knocked it off tree branches. Tracks were slicker and we went faster.

Of course, that also was because we were better. That’s the difference a day makes.

*

Budget for Two

Round-trip air fare, L.A. to Reno...$303.00

Car rental, two days...50.48

Rainbow Lodge, two nights, with tax...270.00

Ski lesson package, first day...97.74

Ski rentals, trail pass, second day...87.54

Lunch, Wilderness

Lodge cafe...18.08

Dinner, Engadine Cafe...92.98

Other meals, snacks...38.39

Gas...7.00

FINAL TAB...$965.21

Royal Gorge, 9411 Hillside Drive (P.O. Box 1100), Soda Springs, CA 95728; (800) 500-3871 for ski resort information and lodging reservations, (530) 426-3661 for Rainbow Lodge front desk, fax (530) 426-9221, www.Royalgorge.com.

*

Ted Rohrlich is a reporter on the Metro staff of The Times.