Askov American. [volume] (Askov, Pine County, Minn.) 1914-current, 1938-01-27
We BECOME WINTER
SPORTS CONSCIOUS
National Parks Offer Vari-
ETY. of Facilities.

Washington. - Tom, Dick and
Harry are making their marks on
the slopes of the country's greatest
mountains these days-faint, mar
row, exhilarating ski tracks in the
snow.
America grows more and more
winter sports conscious and is learn
ing that the grandest ski slopes,
snow vistas, icy skating Kinks and
toboggan slides lie within its ma
tional parks.
OF the country's Is national parks,
all but three are open the year
round to some extent and winter
sports may be enjoyed in many
of them. In some, the snow lasts
into the summer, permitting S k
races on July 4.
Acadia National park, Maine, the
only national park where sea and
mountains meet, has no regular
winter schedule but it offers viStas
of winter loneliness perhaps unSur-
passed in all of New England, the
eastern center of winter sports. It
offers natural skating Kinks,
framed by growing Christmas trees,
and nearly 20 square miles for WIN
ter mixers on snowshoes.
Mount Rainier National park,
Washington, and Yosemite, Sequoia,
and General Grant, California, it's
fellows of the High Sierra, and
Rocky Mountain National park,
Colorado, afford gentle slopes for
ski noviceS who need to build up
courage as well as experience, and
tricky, intricate, exciting courses
which challenge even champions.
Mount Rainier has been the scene
of national championships held as
preliminaries to the Olympic games.
Popularity Increases.
Crater Lake National park in Ore
gon and Lassen Volcanic National
park in California are increasing
in winter popularity and are the
scenes of winter festivals when
weather conditions permit access
to the parks. This year for the first
time the road to Manzanita lake
in Lassen will be kept open and ac-
commodations provided for the
large number of visitors expected
to try the new snow course there.
Last year more than a thousand
came in spite of uncertain roads
and absolute lack of facilities for
caring for visitors.
In the Great Smoky Mountains
National park, North Carolina, and
Tennessee, and Shenandoah Nation
al park, Virginia, there is an in
creased interest in winter sports
and some preliminary consideration
of development, although the snow
does not have such great staying
qualities there. In Morristown Ma
tional Historical park, New Jersey,
there are natural skiing areas. Even
in Yellowstone, which closes for the
winter, the park personnel has win
ter skating and skiing at Mammoth,
and a recent report from Hawaii
tells of an intrepid ranger and his
son who found show high on a vol
canic slope within the Hawaii Ma
tional park and went skiing.
In all of these parks, there are
very few artificial ski slides or to-
boggan slides. The national park
service has adopted definite poll
cy of Stressing the winter beauties
of its parks and of opening them to
all winter sports lovers on an in
formal basis, which will provide
equal opportunity for enjoyment to
amateur and professional. 1t oppos-
es erection of any equipment that
might mar the scenic value and ter
rain of the park. In most of the west
ern parks, there is sufficient snow to
form natural toboggan slides, and
the mountain slopes provide nat
ural ski jumps and runs.
Skiing Is Favorite.
Although skiing seems to be far
and away the most popular sport,
there are so many other things to
do in national parks in winter time
that visitors find it hard to crowd
them all in without setting back
(llC SlOShS.
Skating, ski-joring, which means
riding on skis while holding tightly
to the heightened bride of a we'll
land surf-board riding with a steed
replacing motor boat for power,
placid but still exciting contempla-
ton of the really breath-taking,
white beauty of the parks, slalom
running, which means dangerous
and fast down hill skiing with
sharp turns, tobogganing, SNOWFALL
ing, and sitting in front of great
log fires to thaw out are all on the
program.
The parks also have their own
unique sport, developed, the story
goes, by a former director of the
park service. 1t is called lash can
ming" and is one of the most popular
diversions in Yosemite, Mount Rain
Ter and Sequoia. Equipment for it
consists of an ash can lid, minus the
handle, a burlap bag for cushion,
and courage. The brave sportsman
or sportswoman sits in the lid, is
given a push at the top of a mild
toboggan slide, and goes whirling
around and around and down to