A Week in Review

On the ski racing trip to Mt. Hood Oregon. We went out with WinAlpine and left June 17. While we were there we experienced the seasons all within a week. On the mountain we experienced everything from wintry conditions one morning getting as much as 6 inches of snow on the mountain while other days it was sunny and temps near 60. We were also above the clouds on the mountain so when it was cloudy down below there was sun and blue sky above the tree line. But over all the racing conditions were very favorable and everyone had a great time and learned a lot.

A normal day in the life of a camper consists of getting dragged out of bed at 6:15 a.m. to go and get dressed in your Gs suit and gear. Then it’s off to breakfast at the main house just a short drive away from the girls house in govy but for the boys just downstairs. At breakfast the campers will make themselves breakfast first and then a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for the snack break on the mountain. Another key task to do before a camper leaves for the mountain is to fill up their water bottles and lather on some sun screen. After the stomachs are full and gear is packed it’s off to the mountain.

The ride up to timberline is around 10 to 15 minutes. During this time it is really cool to see that as the car climbs up the switchbacks and gets higher and higher you start to break away from the clouds and realize that it is going to be one great day of skiing. Once in the parking lot racers will grab their gear and head for the Magic mile chairlift to put on their boots and get suited up. Once ready the racers will head up the mile to meet their coaches at either the top of the mile or at the top of the other chairlift, the palmer. Once the coaches are found and bags dropped off the campers will get in a couple of free runs encompassing into their warm-ups drills and techniques that the coaches have worked with them on. After the warm up runs racers will usually ski in a course or work on their ski racing until about 10 when it will be time for snack break. After the snack break the camp will

We started off doing GS the first couple of days at camp, just getting acquainted with our skis again and free skiing for most of the day. After a couple of days of free skiing we started to get into some gates and brushes. We would get about 8 to 15 runs in each day. After spending 4 days on gs the groups switched over to slalom training. We worked a lot on technique using hero gates while free skiing and eventually utilizing full length gates with timing.
After a typical day of skiing, the group would grab some lunch at the main house and either go watch racing video that was shot during the day or we would do dry lands. Dry land training consisted of weight lifting, agility ball workouts, white water rafting, surfing, capture the flag, gears, hikes up to waterfalls, lakes, scenic lookout and driving into Portland for Saturday market on our day off. After dry lands the athletes had free time to go into town or relax at their condos. Some of the hot places to go when in town included shopping at the Fuxi store, going to The Huckleberry Inn for some shakes, and visiting ski reps to test the new equipment. After dinner we generally had a team meeting with guest speakers that included members of the U.S. Disabled Ski Team and ski reps. Many of these talks were very informative and inspiring.

The coaching staff out at Mt. Hood was phenomenal. The training was very personalized with a ratio of 1 coach to every 5 racers ensuring that each racer got special attention and really got a chance to improve their skiing. Scott Winquist puts together a great group of coaches and racers to make the ski camp a great experience.
A new season is quickly approaching come into Skiers Peak to get all of your racing equipment and don’t forget that the key to being fast in the race course is maintaining your skis. Skiers Peak offers world class ski tunes, so come on in and get your skis ready for the slopes.