august 7th

Top: Group picture
Bottom: Shane Hedlund diving into oblivion.



No worries, we picked shane up at the bottom and he was fine :)
today was amazing, we arrived at the mountain around 6:50 for a 7:15 lift ride. Sunrise was breathtaking! The boys trained 5 runs of Slalom and we headed down the hill to get them rested. We plan to run the same early schedule for the rest of camp. The next few days will be longer ones so they need the rest now. Tomorrow's plan is to ski full length GS from the top of the mountain. The kids are ready, all have been progressing well, it should be a good test of skill to move up to a bit more challenging terrain. We have had our share of being snowed out of training but i am impressed with the tenacity and skill retention the group has demonstrated. And skiing in such soft snow is teaching them to be better students of the game!

August 5th... for us NZ update

WE are on hold due to drifting snow on the road to Mt. hutt. they are clearing the road and we are waiting for the go ahead call. Yesterday was a good day. It was snowing on the mountain but the visibility was good. The kids trained GS and they are making great progress. Even though we have not been in gates a whole lot the kids have free skied a lot and I believe in the long run it will pay off. We do not see this much snow in the east too often so it is good to have the kids skiing in this type of snow. They are learning to ski it all. The sun is shining so when the road opens we should get a great day in. Here are a few pictures from yesterday.

Good day for NZ

We had a slight delay this morning... we were supposed to get an early at 7 am but the mountain received 10cm of snow last night... like we need that!!! Anyway we got up to the hill at the normal opening time.(9am) And trained GS. It was rutty but very helpful for getting kids to move through the turn and use the rut efficiently. No pictures today... it was pretty foggy. The weather is supposed to clear up over the next few days so stay tuned.

photo of the day

The boys met a couple of red bull employees and got some red bull after training...

Pictures from 8/1

New Zealand update

Yep, we are all still alive, sorry for the delay in updates. My computer is on the fritz. But I'm back online for now! We lost two days to the storm that hit. We free skied yesterday. The snow was heavy and wet. Not much powder to be had even though we received 1 meter of snow... 39.6 inches. Today we got back into gates and trained full length GS. The snow was a bit soft but its good to learn how to ski in all conditions. The boys are doing great!... I see improvement every day. This morning was an early start. The kids had to put chains on at 6:20am... it was pitch black and they could hardly see anything... Good thing we spent time training chain installation. On one of our days off snow the boys worked on their technique and speed of chain installation. That was a good time. :)
When we arrived at the hill this morning it was still dark. As we rode the chair to the top the sun was rising. I got some nice pictures, I'll post them later. This is quite a remarkable place. After training the boys went free skiing until noon. At 3:30 we have dryland, we have developed a new game since we have been here. I guess for now we'll call it rug-ball. It is a combination of soccer, ultimate Frisbee and touch football. Basically speed-ball, for those who know what that is, except we play with a rugby ball. We would like to come up with a better name for the game so if you have any ideas let us know. :) Its one of the best games I've seen played. It is a true test of hand, foot, eye coordination.