Training at Whistler

Hey – took a trip up to Whistler, Canada a couple of weeks ago (last full week of July) and had a Blast!

The first day, I met up with the others. The Race coach was Tim Harder, a strict alpine coach that despite his harshness had a great sense of humor. The Tele Coach/director/athlete was Shane Landreville, who is a great racer on the Canadian National Tele team. He has a true sense of Tele, unlike Tim who has, by the way, NEVER Telemarked. A Chipper Older Athlete, Scott Edgerton, who’s a great telemarker joined the training, along with a twelve year old, friend of mine, Farli Boden, who I believe has a promising potential in Tele Racing. That is if she ever quits Alpine racing. And Last but Obviously Not Least, Me. That’s all, only five of us. That does disappoint me, and I hope in the future we can have over 20 come with us to Whistler.

It’s definitely worth the trip. If you didn’t know, the glacier that we ski on is above the tree line and on a sunny day has the most wonderful view. The slope itself when well salted can make for a great course. Though the trip up the lift is long, it has its perks. One, it’s gorgeous and two there is a very large population of bears living on the mountain. Throughout the duration of the trip I spotted 9 bears, 8 while I was riding up the chair lifts.

Most of the days we skied from around 8 to around 12 getting about 20 runs in the gates, did some drills, and did a little free skiing. We had video every day and did a little skate training. In the afternoons, Whistler has a lot of great biking and the village is full of things to do. There is also a lake only a short hike away that makes for a fun workout, swimming. The first day it was cloudy and it rained but after that it was sun, sun, sun all the way till the last day.

I’ll post some of the pictures I took with my camera.

Shane Landreville did a wonderful job organizing this camp and I hope to see you all up there next year.