Who has the right-of-way on cross-country ski trails?
A. If you ski where there are snowmobiles, the snow machines have priority. You can hear them coming long before they see you, especially in forested areas. If you are skiing on groomed trails and hear someone yell “track,” step out of the track and let faster skiers pass you. “Track,” in the world of cross-country skiing, means, “please get out of my way and let me pass.” If a skier is traversing or climbing a hill, he or she must get out of the way of any downhill-bound skier who is going faster and has less control. “One interesting dilemma,” notes David L. Wing, an L.L. Bean retail store associate and a 20-year professional ski instructor, “is when you have two people skiing downhill and the person in back is going faster than the person in front. “If the person going slower is less experienced, the faster person should not expect the slower skier to get out of the way if he yells ‘track’,” says Wing. “The slower person may not know what ‘track’ means, or worse, may fall down if he
