With snow falling in Whitehorse last Friday, it seemed like the perfect time to talk about cross-country skiing.

And while the snow teased local winter sports enthusiasts, lasting just a few hours in downtown Whitehorse, special guest Al Maddox managed to stick around the ski trails at Mount McIntyre, at least for the weekend.

Maddox, who is the Federation Internationale de Ski (FIS) technical delegate for cross-country skiing, made his fourth official visit to the territory, in order to check out the progress of ongoing upgrades to the local trails, in anticipation of the 2007 Canada Winter Games.

He was also in Whitehorse back in 1981, as an athlete participating in a World Cup race.

The last couple of visits were more about the design phase, said Maddox, adding the idea was to use as much existing trail at Mount Mac as possible, to minimize both the impact on the environment and the amount of work.

'This is my first chance to see what resulted (from the design phase), how they've aligned the trails on the ground,' he explained, in an interview at the Whitehorse Cross Country Ski Club Friday. 'It's confirmation of where we're at.

'We're batting somewhere around 90 per cent. There's still 10 per cent that will take the next year to sort out. That's kind of normal.'

The major work being undertaken at Mount Mac includes a new ski stadium, just south of the Canada Games Centre, improved trials and a new bridge leading into and around the stadium.

Several short loops, ranging from 2.5 to five kilometres, are being created on the ski trails, some for skating races and some for classic each have different standards. The club had to make one and a half kilometres of new trail, but the rest of the work will use existing trail.

Some dangerous trail intersections are also being eliminated and high traffic areas will now be wider and safer, according to local club president Mike Gladish.

Maddox was particularly interested in checking out the new sprint course being developed, and how it will interact with the rest of the trails.

'The sprint course had always been a little long,' he said. 'But we didn't really see that we had a whole lot of options.'

But seeing it now, Maddox said organizers realize there are options they didn't think they had before, which means changes will probably be made before 2007. In fact, he hopes to fix the sprint concerns in time for the 2006 Northwestel Western Canada Championships, which the Whitehorse club will host in the middle of March.

Maddox was also hoping to evaluate the new bridge, but that will have to wait until the spring, when he returns for the Westerns. There had been delays with the bridge, as well as work in the stadium, because it was being done in the conjunction with the Canada Games Centre.

Now that the Centre is pretty much complete, things should start moving along next door.

The Games centre also created a bit of a space crunch when it came to the ski stadium, said Maddox. Stadiums are generally best around 100 metres, but the Whitehorse stadium will measure around 85 m, which is the minimum. To make up for the cut in space, it will feature a berm, or hill.

'This is my first chance to see what we envisioned the stadium to be like,' he said, explaining there were originally two hills in the plans. '(But) just by leaving one out, it gives us a lot more flexibility, in that the community is now able to use the stadium more effectively. But the first one is nice.

'I'd say (the stadium) is going to be a real crowd-pleaser.'

Maddox has also asked that the ski club evaluate the use of snowmaking on a backup basis, because the stadium is very exposed to both sun and wind.

'In a bad snow year, where would we go? What are our alternatives? I've asked them to come up with a proposal as a backup for snow this year, that we could consider using for next year. It probably means man-made snow.'

Overall, Maddox said he was happy with his visit. Asie from the bridge, there is just minor trail and stadium cleanup left to do before this season, which normally gets underway next month.

Crews will spend the next couple of weeks working on the leveling of the surface, so when the snow comes for good, everything will be as smooth and ready to go as they can make it.

'We wanted to get this much done this year, so that next summer, we can have one final evaluation and make the last-minute changes (for 2007),' he said.

'(The Westerns) will be a good test, because there will be some top skiers coming up. There'll be national ski team athletes, so we'll be able to see how the course skis at the highest level. We'll know if we have problems, because it'll be these guys who complain about it.'

The Westerns will actually be a larger work load for local organizers than the Canada Games, he pointed out, because there will be multiple age classes and multiple distances. If they can pull off a successful event next March, he said, they'll be laughing.

Maddox was also involved in the design and redevelopment of the ski course in Charlo, New Brunswick, used for the 2003 Canada Winter Games.

Asked to compare that course to the one Whitehorse hopes to boast for 2007, the technical representative pointed out the local club naturally has better terrain.

'This will come out a better site. Charlo had a few limitations. They had to try really hard to get the total climbs in there. And they also had the biathlon area as part of the stadium, so it was quite a bit different.

'You have the Canada Games Centre (beside the stadium), but that just makes it challenging. And if you can make (this stadium) work, I think you have a better product in the end.'

Despite a mild fall, snow on the mountains has added to the anticipation of the new ski season in Whitehorse.

Grooming on the trails begins as soon as the snow starts to fall, and skiing usually starts by mid-November.

Last year, skiers were on the trails at the end of October. The earliest the season has ever gotten underway is October 16th, which was in 2002.