Mikkelsen cuts some tracks in city before heading north.

Byline: Shaun Sutner

COLUMN: Snow Sports

Paul Mikkelsen is one of the most legendary Worcester skiers.

The younger brother, and only sibling, of the 65-year-old twins, Leif and Roy Mikkelsen, who run the city's Strands Ski Shop, is a big-time telemark, cross-country and Alpine skier.

Paul, 57, spends winters in Stowe, Vt., skiing the Mount Mansfield backcountry on telemark and cross-country skis, as well as crushing some of Stowe's renowned steeps on conventional Alpine skis.

In the fall, you'll usually see him manning the front counter at Strands, the one-of-a-kind ski and snowboard emporium at 1 West Boylston Drive in Worcester founded by the brothers' father, Norwegian ski jump champion Strand Mikkelsen, in 1934.

Last Wednesday's big first snowfall of the season found Paul cutting first tracks and descents on his X-C skis in the hilly terrain of the city's Green Hill Park, which once hosted a rope tow.

He also put in some miles in the urban core that day.

"If it's bad driving and the roads are covered (with snow), I just ski sidewalks and roads," Paul said. "You just have to get out of the way of the plows."

City skiing in the modern era around here peaked during the Blizzard of 1978 on George Street, the insanely steep downtown hill on which the famed African-American bicycle racer from Worcester, Major Taylor, trained in the early 1900s, according to Paul.

"Those were the finest days of urban skiing," he said. "The whole of downtown Worcester was like one big ski area."

Paul, fit from a steady regimen of fall road-biking, will ski anywhere: Newton Hill, Hadwen Park, Cascade Park and even lift-served slopes at Wachusett Mountain Ski Area in Princeton, which he hit Sunday morning on tele skis.

Stop by Strands and say hi to Paul before he leaves for Stowe after New Year's.

Let's go to the tape

If you're a citizen of Facebook nation and lucky enough to be "friends" with my intrepid reporter colleague, Thomas Caywood of Milford, you'd be able to catch video clips of Tom's first time on a snowboard.

Coached by Helen Beaumont of Worcester, Tom, 39, tries - with considerable success - to make it down Wachusett's Sundowner slope in one piece.

Helen, a singer with the Guns of Navarone ska band and a skilled snowboarder and instructor, recorded Tom on her Flip camcorder on Saturday night. The results are both humorous and impressive.

Now, Tom is not timid. He fought in Iraq as a soldier in the first Gulf War, then returned as a Boston Herald...