The wind moaning around our window of the historic  Mount Washington Hotel at the Omni Mount Washington Resort in Bretton Woods, N.H., made you think there might be some truth to the stories that the hotel is haunted. As Marilyn and I lingered over a magnificent breakfast, the snow blowing sidewise obscured what had been a stunning view of Mount Washington and the Presidentials the afternoon before.

Outside, the snow flung by the biting wind tried to sandpaper the skin off my face. When the car reluctantly started, the outside thermometer registered 11 degrees. It felt a whole lot colder than that.

We’d just enjoyed two days of blue skies and moderate temps; the kind of weather you know can’t last long in winter in New England. On Sunday we had skied at Bretton Woods savoring beautifully groomed snow and the looming grandeur of Mount Washington across the narrow valley.

Then, Old Man Winter decided to show everyone that he is still in firm control.

Bretton Woods Nordic: The Top-Down Option

We’d been planning to try something different on this particular day. Both of us love Alpine skiing, and we both love cross-country. So, we’d decided to combine the two with a top-down cross-country ski adventure. Sure, conditions weren’t perfect, but there was lots of snow to enjoy. The nice folks at the Bretton Woods Nordic Center, who know the way the winds and snow work around their trail system, assured us that, once we got into the shelter of the woods, conditions would be perfect. They were right.

The Bretton Woods Nordic Center maintains 100 km of cross-country ski trails on over 1700 acres, making it one of the biggest in New England. There are four  distinct trail systems, three on the east side of Route 302:  Golf Course (mostly flat), Deception and Ammonoosuc (mostly intermediate) which all interconnect.

The Stickney trail system, to the west of Route 302, connects with the trails at the top of The Bethlehem Express Quad chair at the Bretton Woods Ski Area (single-ride lift tickets are $10). The trail that starts at the chairlift is called “Mountain Road”, and it winds its way 7 km through the woods mostly flat or easy downhill. Eventually it allows you to connect with the Ammonoosuc trails on the other side of the highway so you can ski back to the Nordic Center, or you can ski back to the lifts along the Rosebrook Express Trail on the railroad tracks.

As usual, we geared up for safety, put extra clothes food, water and an emergency kit in our backpacks, to be prepared if something went wrong.

The ride up the chairlift was cold and miserable with the wind slamming snow into our faces. We weren’t dressed for Alpine skiing.

But once off the lift and on the trail, it was like someone threw the “Magic’ switch. The wind almost disappeared, the snow filtered straight down through the trees. The only sounds we heard were the soft hiss of snowflakes and our own laughter. The only tracks we saw were from moose.

Mountain Road was just pure fun. The whole loop is just shy of 10 km and took us less than two hours of leisurely skiing. We could have made it much longer by detouring onto other trails, but we had other places we had to be.

How did you enjoy the snowy day. Were you outside watching the play of wind and snow, or did you hide inside? If you hid, I bet we had more fun than you did!

 Other Top-Down Options

Once you start looking for them, there are several long, top-down cross-country ski trails around the northeast. And March, when the snow is deepest, is the perfect time to explore them.

On the other side of Mount Washington, at the Great Glen Trails Outdoor Center (603-466-2333; www.greatglentrails.com) in Gorham, NH, you can ride the snowcoach part way up the Mount Washington Auto Road and ski back down, detouring into their 40 km trail system.

You can connect to the trail system of the Jackson Ski Touring Foundation (603-383-9355; www.jacksonxc.org ) from the top of   Wildcat Mountain  (1-888-SKI WILD; www.skiwildcat.com ) in Pinkham Notch,  via the experts-only 17 km Wildcat Valley Trail (www.jacksonxc.org/wildcat.htm) or from the Top of Black Mountain (1-800-475-4669; www.blackmt.com ) in Jackson, N.H. via the intermediate-friendly Sugarbush trail.

Stowe (1-800-253-4754; www.stowe.com ) in Stowe, Vermont has the famous Bruce Trail which departs from the top of the Fore Runner Quad on Mount Mansfield and connects with the trails of their Nordic Center. There’s one point on it called “The Elevator Shaft”

The next “Top-Down” adventure Marilyn and I are planning to do is from the top of Gore Mountain (518-251-2411; www.goremountain.com ) in North Creek, New York, to the cross country trails at Garnet Hill Lodge XC Center (518-251-2150; www.garnet-hill.com) in North River NY. This is a guided trek that takes all day and seems like a logical step up from the easy Mountain Road. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’m sure there are other top-down cross-country options that I haven’t discovered yet. If you know of any, please tell me. I have to admit, our Mountain Road adventure was so much fun, I want to try them all.

INFERNO TIME

The Tuckerman Inferno and the Wildcat Wildfire races are scheduled for April 18 this year. These are both Pentathlons: running, whitewater paddling, biking, race hiking, and ski racing. They are run by individuals, and two-person or 5-person teams.

I love the Inferno because the only way to watch the end of the race is to hike into Tuckerman Ravine. So even the spectators get some exercise. But the “milder” Wildcat Wildfire will probably attract more competitors.

For more information on these races, go to www.friendsoftuckerman.org.