Editor's note: This is First Person, one in an occasional series of stories by Star Tribune readers and staff members about their outdoors experiences.

I grew up cross-country skiing in northern Minnesota — Grand Rapids, to be exact. While in high school, my friends and I would regularly ski Suomi Hills in Chippewa National Forest, a gorgeous trail through pines and birch that climbs to high ridges overlooking pristine and untouched lakes and drops into wooded valleys. I was spoiled. Still to this day, I miss easy access to that incredible trail.

But I live in Minneapolis, and for many reasons I love living in Minneapolis. I turned up my nose at city cross-country skiing at first, but I have been won over completely by the trails at Theodore Wirth Park (and a few other trails as well).

From my home in south Minneapolis, Wirth is a 10- to 15-minute drive. Once there, I can choose from miles of trails — trails that climb hills and drop into valleys. Sure, I occasionally emerge to look down on traffic or hear the sound of traffic, something that never happened at Suomi Hills. But much of the time, I lose any sense of the city from inside those wooded trails. It's just the sound of skis moving along the silky snow, the sight of trees, bare branches and pine boughs often laden with snow all around.

Recently, my ski buddy Judy Griesedieck and I were moving along the Quaking Bog section of Wirth trail, surrounded only by trees and the quiet hush of the woods, when I felt the whoosh of a large presence just behind me. I looked back, while skiing downhill (tricky!) and caught sight of widespread wings that were majestic and gorgeous. Then, I saw the head of a hawk. Judy, a few feet behind me, stopped and called out to me. "Is it a red-tailed hawk?" I couldn't see its tail from where it was perched on a tall branch. Its head, white and fluffed on the side, was moving all around, but the rest of its body was still. Its eyes peered, and I admired the swivel of its head and the intensity of its gaze. I turned around and skied back up that hill. We stood and watched. Judy said, in a singsong voice, "Come on, fly for us, show us those wings again."

We waited. After a few seconds the hawk took flight and spread those magnificent wings, giving us a beautiful view of its tail, cinnamon-red across the bottom. Definitely a red-tailed hawk. We continued along the trail, skis like silk wings beneath us, carrying us through the woods we shared that day with the spectacular raptor.

Wirth Park is the center of a lot of recreational as well as competitive skiing. The annual City of Lakes Loppet skiing festival draws internationally ranked skiers right here in our backyard.

Best of all is when the ski-grooming from Wirth Park is extended to Cedar Lake and Lake of the Isles when there is enough snow, usually in preparation for the Loppet race. Then I can walk from my home to the lake, hop on the lake trail and ski over miles all the way to Wirth Park. Skiing across those frozen lakes is akin to skiing in the Northwoods — there's that sense of being away from the fray and frenzy. Wide open beauty abounds in the sky and even in the skyline. Sunrises and sunsets are especially spectacular from out on the lakes.

Skiing Wirth takes the edge off my nostalgia for Suomi Hills. It's a gift, and every time I ski I am grateful to all the people on the Loppet Foundation board and volunteers who have worked so hard to develop this cross-country ski paradise in the middle of a city. I am grateful to those people on the Minneapolis Park Board of the early 1900s (and into the present!), Theodore Wirth among them, for having the foresight to preserve parkland for the community to treasure.

Every time I snap on my skis and enter the trail, my heart opens to the urban woodland adventure that awaits.

About the author: Patricia Hoolihan is a writer and writing instructor. Her memoir, "Storm Prayers: Retrieving and Reimagining Matters of the Soul," was published in 2014. She teaches a variety of classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and Metropolitan State University and has been doing so for about 20 years. She also is an avid skier.