The newly formed River Ridge Nordic Ski Club is in full swing, as many people have been enjoying the cross-country ski trails at River Ridge Trails park.
The club was formed last November and it already has 135 members.
It is important for the club to have a strong membership because that helps with the cost of operating the club.
“We rely on our membership fees to keep the cost of our programs low and allow us to maintain well groomed cross-country ski trails just outside of Langham,” said River Ridge Nordic Ski Club representative Kira Nelson. “Without members we wouldn’t have access to funding that is available from the provincial government.”
Along with the cross-country ski trails, there are also snowshoe and fat biking trails for people to enjoy as well.
The River Ridge Nordic Ski Club is in charge of the maintenance and development of the cross country ski trails and the organization is doing its best to provide a top notch facility.
The River Ridge Trails Association recently started constructing summer trails for hiking and biking and the ski trails were planned for a later date in the overall project at the park.
“It was definitely on their radar to have a club, and the plan was to have ski trails out there and they would need someone to form a group to do that and they weren’t planning for that until Phase 3,” said Nelson.
Nelson was part of a group of people that approached the River Ridge Trails Association and it didn’t take too long to form an official club.
Even though there is no cost for people to use the trails, the club encourages non-members to make a donation because of the maintenance that needs to be done to the trails each week.
“We have a donation box at the trailhead as well as a donation option online. We recommend, if you like the trails please donate because without donations and memberships we won’t be able to continue to maintain and have groomed trails,” said Nelson.
“People who go out and they love it, they’ll usually sign up as a member later because they want to keep coming back. People in the ski community know that memberships are how you support your club because without it, you won’t have that club in the future.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected the programing that the club can offer but Nelson is just happy that there is a place close by where people can enjoy cross-country skiing.
“In a non-pandemic year, there will be both adult and youth programming. There will be a bunny-rabbit program which is for three to five-year olds, along with a jack-rabbit program which is for 6 to 10-year olds, and that is a once a week training,” said Nelson
“It’s a bit tricky because there are limitations on how we can run our programs, but we are navigating that, as all other sports are.”
Right now the club is organizing learn to ski clinics for any one who wants an in-depth lesson in cross-country skiing.
“The learn to ski clinic is for anyone to come out, even people that have skied for years but have never had any formal lessons or just want to brush up on their skills,” said Nelson. “It’s what we can do this year and as a new club and I think we are doing really well.”
Along with developing cross-country ski trails, the club is also planning to have other amenities available at the park in the future.
“We want to build and maintain the facilities out there, like warm up shacks for skiers and hikers and continue to purchase equipment that we can use for grooming,” said Nelson.
The River Ridge Nordic Ski club is really invested in providing the best opportunity for people in the area to go cross-country skiing and they really want to build the sport.
“We want to develop a ski at school program where we can work with local schools to provide them with another extra curricular activity, so that they can have an actual ski team, use our trails and have equipment they can access,” said Nelson.
Overall, the goal is to establish River Ridge Trails park as a premiere ski area in Saskatchewan.
“The feedback we’re getting from members and other skiers is positive and they just can’t believe how amazing it is to have these high quality trails so close to Saskatoon, Warman, Martensville and area.”