Nordic Hut keeps cross country ski rentals alive at Mount Spokane State Park

Off to the side of the Selkirk Lodge at Mount Spokane State Park, there’s a white semi-trailer full of Nordic skis, boots, poles and snowshoes waiting for someone to try them out.

The trailer has long been a part of Spokane’s Nordic ski scene, offering gear for rent and a few other necessities – namely snacks and Sno-Park passes – at the jumping-off point for the state park’s robust trail system.

But this season, after a brief period of uncertainty, the trailer enters a new era, complete with a new owner and a new name: Nordic Hut.

Ted Haskell purchased the business over the summer and opened it for the winter season on the Friday after Thanksgiving. In doing so, Haskell preserved what appears to be Spokane’s only option for renting Nordic gear, and simultaneously a way to introduce people to a sport they can do for a lifetime.

“The only way to do that is through having equipment available,” he said.

Rex Schultz, a Washington State Parks spokesman, said that’s especially important at a place like Mount Spokane.

“We get a lot of entry-level people who will rent Nordic skis or snowshoes during their first visit to the mountain,” Schultz said.

The trailer itself could have disappeared if it weren’t for Haskell.

Offering Nordic rentals on the mountain was the brainchild of Robin DeRuwe, the former owner of the Millwood outdoors store Fitness Fanatics. About a decade ago, she worked with Washington State Parks to get a concession permit to rent skis out of a trailer next to the Selkirk Lodge.

DeRuwe said having rentals close to Mount Spokane’s trails gave people who were new to the sport a better experience, and it also reduced the number of loaner skis that would suffer wear-and-tear from bouncing around in cars all winter long.

She found a trailer and parked it near the lodge and started renting out gear there. The business did well enough that she bought the trailer that’s there now and fixed it up – electricity, Wi-Fi, fake fireplace.

“It really just added to our Nordic facilities up there,” DeRuwe said.

Earlier this year, though, DeRuwe retired and closed her store after 35 years, leaving the future for the trailer up in the air. The timing coincided with two other blows to the valley’s Nordic ski supply: Rambleraven Gear Trader closed in April, and REI stopped offering rentals.

Haskell coaches the Spokane Nordic Association’s development team and is the treasurer for the nonprofit’s board, which gave him a front-row seat to conversations about the rental trailer’s future.

An accountant by trade, he’d been looking for something different to do. Slinging rental skis and snowshoes sounded like a fun seasonal job, even if it meant drying and disinfecting boots. Plus, it would be a chance to help others discover the joy of gliding across snow on sticks.

“My motivation was to keep the operation up there to introduce people to the sport,” he said.

Haskell, who has been in Spokane for about nine years, picked up Nordic skiing when he and his family lived in Wyoming. He’s been an endurance athlete all his life, and he needed a way to pass the long winters.

He got into skate skiing and started competing in ski marathons, and he found that skiing was more fun than running.

“You’re focusing on different aspects of your technique,” he said. “It’s more interesting, you get a change of scenery, the solitude is really nice. As you get older it’s easier on your body, too.”

Running a rental business is a new challenge for him. He’s never worked retail before, much less owned a store.

Most of the purchase price was the trailer’s inventory – more than 200 pairs of skis, about as many boots and even more ski poles. Haskell’s learning how to keep it all organized. His wife helped him set up a point-of-sale system and the website.

He’s working to fill out the inventory with other items, such as harnesses for people who like to let their dogs pull them around on skis. This week, Washington State Parks gave him a batch of Sno-Park passes to sell.

Working near the top of Mount Spokane has its perks, proximity to the trails being chief among them. Haskell can sneak in laps of his own to gauge trail conditions ahead of development team practices.

Then there are the views. On Monday afternoon, when the valley was socked in with low hanging clouds, it was all sunshine and blue skies up at the trailer. Golden hour was just beginning to set in as he prepared to close for the day.

“The sunsets and sunrises are incredible,” Haskell said. “It’s really someplace special.”