Monday, May 18, 2009

Graduation 2009




Congratulations to Matty and Kristen on graduation this past Sunday.  It was not coldest commencent I have been to but it certainly wasn't warm.  I think near the end there were more people watching from the Library and other surrounding buildings than on the Library quad.  Kristen and Matty toughed it out and walked though.

Knut also recieved his Masters in Education degree, unfortunately I couldn't find him after the ceremony so missed getting a photo.  5 more years until you are a skiing master though Knut!

Friday, May 15, 2009

More Skiing

I think the last time I skied in any form this spring was an epic trip to Haystack Mountain at the end of March or in early April. I decided have one more go at it with a trip to Tuckerman's Ravine on Mt. Washington, probably my favorite place to ski. It also gave me a chance to try out carrying skis with the new team backpacks, which worked out pretty well, but my shoulders are kinda sore now. Compared to last year, there were really only a few options for continuous skiing and a lot more crevasses and rocks. I went for left gully first, which proved to not have a whole lot of snow and was a little more terrifying than I thought it would be. I tried the chute next, which is the next obvious ski run over from left gully. The snow cover was good all the way from the top and the skiing was great despite being really soft. It was good enough in fact, that I turned around and went right back up again and fortunately only had to share the run with a handful of other people. I managed to get a pretty good burn on my forehead as I forgot to put sun screen there and was wearing my hat backwards, which left a funny burn line. Not quite like Adam's Stowe adventure, but just the sort of fun I'm looking for before I get back to work training (I did rollerski this week, though). I'm off to British Columbia next week with my glacial geology class, then up to the county to train with MWSC, then off to North Dakota for a geology project. Hopefully I'll find time to do the presidential traverse with the sluski crew. We've been talking about it for a while and I want to see it happen. Its gonna be a busy summer and I feel like I'll back at school before I know what happened.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

The First Ski Adventure of 2009/2010

“There's a big difference between being wet from being in the rain and being totally soaked from jumping into water” Bogden said as a group of us ran through the mud and mist on the campus trails. It was, for many of us, the last day at SLU. “Total lie,” I angrily thought last weekend, as I sprinted down Mt. Mansfield toward the Stowe base lodge in a torrential, thundering downpour. I was soaked through to my spandex, sprinting downhill on the aptly-named blue square Nosedive, with gear-stuffed bag and a pair of skis strapped on my back, and a pair of skate poles in hand. I couldn't look straight ahead without getting my eyes flushed by the wall of water from this fresh New England storm, so I crisscrossed the mountain in almost complete blindness as I tried to make my way back to Big Red, hoping I hadn't locked the keys inside.

Whoa. Back up. What was I doing up there to begin with?

I woke up Saturday morning with an urge for adventure. Getting back to Vermont meant tons of familiar trails and training spots, but this year I want to try some new ideas. Some of my high school teammates and I often hiked Stowe in the fall, after the snow guns had begun to blast and the ground became skiable. Why wouldn't there be skiable snow on the other bookend of winter? Unlike the US Ski Team, APU or other western teams, we don't usually have access to perfect tracks in the spring. Time to change that. I wolfed down some chocolate-chip pancakes as I scoured the webcams of various nearby mountains. Bingo, Mansfield's 4000+ feet still had plenty of beautiful snow. This could be just the epic adventure I was looking for. I threw a camera, shoes, skis, sandwiches, water and the last of my Dana-mix (my favorite snack: a mix of Frosted Flakes, Special K and Granola all stolen, erm, aquired, from Dana Dining Hall) into Big Red, informed my dad “I'll be back later. A couple of hours at least,” and was off. 50 minutes later I pulled my stuff from the car, and with some other like-minded ski-fanatics (albeit downhill shredders) started hiking up the Toll Road. The sky was grey and there was an occasional drizzle, but it felt pretty nice in the humid air. I thought nothing more of it. I wanted to make sure I got in a quality workout regardless, so when I hit some face slopes I got to the top by way of some light ski-walking intervals at a pretty calm level 3 pace. Sure enough, snow patches were appearing all around me. At the summit I looked back and saw a shirtless dude eating up dirt as he ran to the weather station at the peak. “Wow, I should probably start doing that myself next time,” I thought. I hate being outdone in endurance badassness, and I was getting shown-up pretty good by this suns-out, guns-out tough-guy. I looked across the ridgeline and saw much better snow on the far side of the mountain. Using the trail map, I navigated my way along some double black diamonds and glades. Stumbling and slipping over the icy, wet ground, I worked my way to the far side of the mountain and found what I wanted:a relatively flat stretch of snow about 300 meters long, ready for some skiing. As I put my boots on the rain became steadily heavier. I skied around for maybe 20 minutes, then huddled under some fallen tree roots while I munched a small lunch (2 bananas and 2 granola bars). The rain only came down harder, so with reluctance I pulled on the only coat I had--a retro CVU Nordic windbreaker--and started running. After sinking both feet in mud, falling through snow up to my kneecaps and tripping and sliding on my back for a couple of 20-feet stretches, I was thoroughly coated in water inside and out. I came to a wide trail and realized that I was still on the far side of the mountain. “Frick, I've only got two choices,” I thought. I could try and snake across the mountain and back to Big Red, or go straight down to the road and run 20 minutes back on the Mountain road. My quads were already screaming like a sissy from the stress of all the downhill running, so I tried cutting across. I made it a good distance over, but ended up still having to run around 2 soggy miles back to the car. I couldn't have gotten wetter if I had jumped in the snowmaking pond. So much for running not getting you soaked to the bone. I may not have won the endurance toughness award, but I was thankful I kept my shirt on. I couldn’t imagine what macho-mountain-man was doing right now. As I drove down the hill and towards town, I looked back on the resort. Like a scene straight out of a horror movie, the entire mountain was becoming engulfed in grey-black cloud, with flashes of lightning every few seconds. I hit the pedal and gunned it towards Piecasso.


The initial climb out of the parking lot


Starting the ascent, prepped for skiing


Some perfect terrain for ski walking (and bounding later in the season)


Everyone should race the Stowe Derby at least once in their life


Aha!


Pretty good for May 9th in New England

Thursday, May 7, 2009

Catamount Trail BC Challenge

I just caught this today. Eric Tremble '00 set a new course record and repeated as the winner of the Catamount BC Challenge on May 1st. It looks like a rather tough event. He wrote a great account of his race posted on the website.
http://www.catamounttrail.org/news/trembleandhanowskiwinthecatamounttrailbcchallenge/

During his time at St. Lawrence which overlapped with my days as a SLUSKI student he was one of our best racers and one of my most favorite teammates to train with. I think his top finish was a 2nd place finish in a Classic race at the SLU carnival in his junior or senior year while I was an assistant coach.

He is currently doing a lot bike racing and living in Burlington.