First day in Gates

Today was a great day... we could see the whole mountain and the snow was great. Coaches set a turn-shape course for the athletes and we saw a lot of improvement in most of the kids. We took about 5 runs then had a short break to watch video and have a snack. After the break they headed out again for 2-3 more runs in the course and 3 free ski runs to end on. Tomorrow the mountain is going to open early so we can get training in before the next storm rolls in. The boys have to get up around 5:45am for a 6:20 departure. Our plan is to continue the progression of GS over the next few days. Everyone is healthy and motivated, that makes my job much easier. Hope all is well back home I hear it has been a bit wet, so stay dry and stay tuned.

Emotional roller coaster of conditions

After an awesome day yesterday the clouds rolled back in on us today. I would say it was like skiing in a bowl of 2% milk. The visibility was real bad and you could not tell if you were moving or stopped. We tried to wait it out for a while but it did not clear up. Tomorrow we should be good to go. My guess is that the weather we had today was the tail end of the big storm that hit the North island. I heard on the news that it was fore casted to be one of the worst storms in 15 years... the kind of storm you read about! We'll keep pushing on to get some quality training in. All of these set back just mean less days off further into the camp. Here are a few pictures for you. Chaz was a real trooper diving in head first to take the chains off at the end of the day... Nice work!

Epic Powder!!!!

Ok, I know we are here to train, but.... the snow was too soft to set gates. :) So we skied the pow all day. The sun was out for most of the day and we skied until about 2:30. The only downfall to the day was long lift lines, the lifts had to stop frequently to be de-iced. I think the boys had an unforgettable day today. I had to drag most of them off the hill, so that is good. I have a little video to post as soon as I get it downloaded.

New Zealand update

Yesterday the weather was too much for the mountain to open, so we had a day off. Lon and I took the kids to Christchurch to play a game of laser tag. After laser tag we stopped in at the Royal New Zealand Air Force museum. The museum had full size restored planes and helicopters on display. There were a lot of old planes from WWI and some newer ones as well. We took a tour to see all the planes that were in the restoration phase but not yet on display. It was pretty neat, I think everyone was very impressed.
Today the 25th we are on hold until mid day, the mountain road is closed at this time. road workers are digging out the road and we should find out soon if we will be able to ski today. I'll keep you posted.

AUGUST DRYLAND

Cut and paste this link into your web browser to attain true enlightenment and the August dryland program. http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pz2Wj4vD6ipoF4gF6njRGNQ. I hope everyone is working hard!!!

Day 3

Well, the storm has us in its grip. The foul weather does not mean foul skiing though! The boys continued working on balance today and actually the weather is a big help when it comes to doing these drills. The kids are forced to call upon their sense of feel and use vision less. Sounds a bit in left field maybe but the improvements were very encouraging to me. It looks as though the weather will clear up by Monday for sure, maybe sooner. We are planing to do some GS turn shape courses and drills tomorrow... weather permitting. For now everyone is healthy and eating good. Todays pit stop for chains was still about 5 min. :) enjoy the day!

In action: Tunning session,... they are your kids! :)

Snow in July

Great second day on snow. We really hit the ground running today. Our pit crew of tire chain installers cut the time of installation down to just over five minuets! Still not good enough though, I think we can get the time down to under 3 min. As you can see from the pictures we had a bit of snow this morning. The lifts were only a few minuets late getting going and as the day went on the weather cleared up very nicely. The boys free skied for the first part of the morning and then we started our drill progression. The snow was tough to ski in so we will have to re-visit some of the drills we did today, in the days to come. I'm very pleased with most of the guys, they are in pretty good shape. We skied until 2pm today and they were all early for dryland. When the weather gets a bit better we will try and get a group picture to post, today was not the day for that. The boys have not called home yet I'm sure. After dryland I will encourage them yet again to get calling cards and touch base with you. Keep in mind it could be a late call, as I write this it is 11:35pm there at home and we just finished dryland.

Morning Storm

Skiing

Today we got up to the hill after a long stop. Lon's chains for the van were too small for the tires. Luckily we had some bigger ones in our van. Some guys that work the chain up area helped us out too, so not a bad start to our day. Just a slow one. The boys spent their time on the hill working on a few individual drills and putting on some mileage. Yeah, I forgot my camera today so no pics... I'm sure you guys are tired of hearing that one. :) But I'll see what I can do over the next few days. This afternoon we had a great dryland session. We jogged to the fields, the boys did a few sprints and then we played speed ball with the girls. It looks as though we have some wet weather coming in, hopefully it doesn't get too bad. I'll keep you posted and have a good day.

New Zealand

We made it safely and are going skiing tomorrow! Everyone is pretty tired, we had to do a lot of running though airports with our gear. Everyone was great about it and payed attention. United and Air New Zealand held fights for us, one each. We were very lucky to make all the flights. Everyone received their luggage so no problems there. Hope all is well back home. my cell # does work here in case you need to reach me. I'm going to have the kids get phone cards tomorrow.