Open FIS Sunday River

Ed went up to the Great North in the wee hours that Friday.  The remaining five adventurers piled into the van after a little dinner and made the trek.  After braving the dark roads and one McDonalds stop, we arrived at our refuge, The Norseman.  We were uncertain what we would find at this northern venue with such a late snow season at hand.  

In the morning we were greeted with mostly grassy trails and snowguns at full power.  Some of the westerners were less then impressed with this.  However the sun was out and they finally got to hit some slalom gates so smiles were big nonetheless.  

Geordie shields herself from the snowguns on the way up the lift 

But we are happy

When we got to the course, we were pleasantly surprised with the surface.  It was hard, good snow!  Sunday River said they could do it and they did a great job preparing the hill.

G, mid warmup

The Ephs fought hard and pulled off some impressive stuff, despite not having a single slalom turn in their training quiver.  Geordie managed a fourth place!  Christoph a 13! And Chris wound up 25!

Christoph

Carson skied great but did not quite manage to navigate his way around all the gates.  And Victor almost cracked top 30, with a 32.

Victor and Geordie

It was a really fun first race weekend and we are all psyched we went.

Christoph, Victor, Carson

Before The Snow

You put a skier on a snowy mountain and sure, they have to work hard out there to get better but they are in their element.  Its very easy for them to look around and get inspired.  But what happens when you take away the crisp, white element?  Thats when they have to dig deep and look inside of themselves for inspiration... and thank you, Mother Nature for giving the Williams Alpine Ski Team this opportunity.

Yay Charles!

Awesome Job today Charles!  Those 18 hundredths would have been nice to qualify for that second run but 31st in your first world cup!  Not too shabby Chucko!

Good Luck Charles

Now we have two Williams Ski Team alumns on the World Cup Circuit.  Chris Frank has been skiing great with some awesome NorAm results recently.  He skied well in his last world cup, even dealing with a rerun situation.  So keep up the good work, Chris!

And Charles Christianson will be making his White Circus debut tomorrow in the mens GS at Beaver Creek.  Just want to wish you luck from the purple valley!  Eyes up and Go, Charles!

Alpine Ephs Head Out West

The team spent Thanksgiving break in Winter Park, Colorado. We had exactly four days on snow, which didn't seem like much in theory. But with two and even three sessions in a day, you can get a lot done! We were lucky enough to have guest coach, Brendan helping us out. The team was focused and working hard. We had a wonderful dinner at Victor's family's place. That evening there was an intense chess matchup between Whitney and Christoph. Unfortunately they would not disclose the winner to the press and they announced it as "a tie". We are going to have to work on the competitiveness there... Thanksgiving day included turkey and a parking lot football game so everyone was a true American, even the Canadians. It was a super fun, productive camp.

Big Thank You to Bo Peabody '94, Rich Georgi '87, and Steve Graham '82 for making it possible.

Here is some footage of our travels.

Colorado

We are out in sunny Colorado.  This is the spot where I ate breakfast this morning... not too shabby.  The sun has been shining everyday, the snow has been great and everyone is working hard.  The team was crushing drill courses on the first day back on snow and by the second day, we were getting into gritty technique.  And the team is embracing each of these challenges as they are thrown at them.  I don't think it hurts that it is 44 degrees and bright sunshine.

We are all pretty exhausted by the end of each today... the triptafen from tonight's dinner probably contributes to that as well.  Anyway, just wanted to let you know that all is well out here and we hope the next few days go by slowly!

Last Year's Vid

There is a lot of video from the old video blog that I would like to make sure does not get lost. If you press the open/menu button on the player, you can view any of the videos that were posted last season.

Enjoy!

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Early Tracks

A few of us went up to Killington on Sunday to take advantage of all the snow we've been getting. A lot of it has melted around these parts so we did not know what to expect but these four couldn't turn down an opportunity for a good adventure that involved skis. So we packed up the van and left in the wee hours of the morning and headed to Vermont.

Williams Fall Testing 2011

Yesterday we had our first day of fall testing.  It was a huge success.  The sun was out and old records were put to bed.  This team is strong.  The events of the day were:

90 sec Box Jumps
Broad Jump
Team Pull-ups

Sarah made her presence known by throwing down 107 box jumps and 14 pull-ups.  Whitney set a new bar with 23 pull-ups and new records were also set in the broad jump.  Christoph leapt 8'11'' for the men and Geordie threw the gauntlet down at 7'4.5''.

White Morning

October Snow

Looked a lot like winter today in Williamstown. It just keeps dumping. There is about two inches of snow on my railing now and it doesn't look like its going to stop soon. Its pretty fun to see! Looking forward to waking up to a fresh, white world!

Just getting the team into the winter spirit!

Making Big Gains

The team has been hammering in dryland... seriously!  Three mornings a week, five afternoons.  Sprints all the time, spinning, pushing huge weights... You name it, they've mastered it.  Anyway, its awesome to see and the results have been evident:

Whitney

                 John                                                                                 Shannon

Also, John befriended a sheep.

But they have seriously been crushing it in dryland.  So keep up the good work, team!

Spruce Cleanup Continued

Here are a few more pictures of the cleanup effort at the Spruces, courtesy of Laurel.

Lunch in the Tent 

Skiers (and Nick) love burgers 

Carson, Dylan, Christoph and Nic trying to stay dry 

Shannon - grill master 

Marissa looks excited! 

The Crew 

Carson takes care of business

Early Morning Soccer

A couple of times a week, the team is up at the crack of dawn to grace the soccer field with real skills. And that is just what they did on this particular Tuesday morning. Thanks to John's professional photography skills, we have a flavor of whats going on out there.

Victor, Sarah and Whit going in for the ball

Will gleefully has a take-no-prisoners sort of attitude out there.

Geordie looks less than pleased with his antics.

Pedro

Helping Out at The Spruces

The team spent the day at the Spruces helping clean up some of the mess left behind by Irene. They had a great time and made some new friends!

Will, John and Whit with some of their new friends

Ski Team Fun

I am testing to see if we can get better video quality on this website. Hopefully we can. Here is a little clip I made last season. I have to say, it looks pretty fun!

Ski Team Fun from Kelsey Levine on Vimeo.

A New Beginning

So, I have been having a lot of fun creating movies for the blog. Unfortunately, the video quality on this blog site is quite poor and it is difficult for you all to see the smiling faces of the team. Due to this, I will be changing blog sites. I am very sorry for the confusion and hope you are all looking forward to the clarity of the new site.

Here it is: http://williamsalpine.podbean.com/

See you there!

Kelsey

Middlebury Carnival

The Carnival was another fun event. We got to stay at The Marriot, a very fine establishment complete with a pool, hot tub and wonderful buffet breakfast. The first day of the carnival began with pouring rain and 55 degrees. The sun broke through for second run and the afternoon was awesome. No gloves or hats required.

The warm temperatures did provide the athletes with seriously soft snow and huge ruts. There was some great fighting out there though.

The GS was freezing and extremely windy. This provided a hard track and lots of opportunities for anyone who stepped up.

Special thanks to the Haddens for a wonderful dinner on the way home. We all enjoyed ourselves very much. My biggest regret of the weekend was not getting a picture of Will wearing bib number 64 standing next to Tim Kelly, number 8 in line for the second run of GS. It was a great moment.

Will is extremely happy to see his puppy

A Flavor for the Weekend

1:4

We have just arrived back from the Middlebury Carnival. I have much to report on that but first I thought I would give you a glimpse into the "normal life" around these parts. I want you to experience an important part of Williams College Ski Team Dinners: Jeff. He is known for both his intake speed and his mature take on a healthy diet.

32 Degrees and Sunny

As I described yesterday, Jiminy Peak has a tendency to require multiple hoods, goggles and handwarmers. Yet, the stars aligned and we were given 32 degrees and sunny. It was extremely difficult to know how to dress for the weather. Ed and I debated about baseball hats or winter hats. We went with winter hats. Sean and Jeff debated about boots and shin guards. They went with neither. Some of today's choices were better than others.

On our little drive to practice, we are greeted by this nice, little mountain.

The wind turbine is completely still.

Whirlaway looks spectacular. Under a dusting of soft snow, the surface is icy and hard.

This is where the girls will set up slalom training.

Ed, with his stunner shades. The courses are set, the snow is good. He is loving life here.

The men are on the foxes. The training course over here is spectacular, if I must say so myself. The men prepare for a day of very fast slalom. Alex R is feeling a little left out of the bromance blossoming beside him.

Congratulations to Will for having the fastest times of the day on the mens side.

Epic Day

"An epic GS day!" said freshman Alex Jerred. However, he is new this year so what he does not know it that the whipping northerly wind that was blowing straight up Whirlaway, glazing the surface is generally the norm around here. It felt like home standing on top of the trail with my tips pointed straight down the extremely steep pitch and moving nowhere due to the gusts.

We came out in the afternoon and the sun was shining and the trail was bulletproof. The course was fast and not very easy and yet everyone rose to the challenge. I definitely saw some of the best skiing I have seen from many people today.

I was quite busy videoing the runs so unfortunately did not get any pictures out on the hill but I do have this gem of the freshman boys. They got to ride home with Ed and I in the mini van and they were pretty excited.

John and Jerry

Happy Valentines Day

First of all, Happy Valentines Day!

We have now had back to back three-day-race weekends. The team is doing an excellent job keeping up their energy despite all the days on snow. During the ride home yesterday, the guys called Ed, requesting to have another day of training instead of a day off.

We came home with some more great successes from this fine weekend. Highlights go to Geordie Lonza for a third place in the GS and a fifth place in slalom, Laurel Carter for a fifth place in slalom and Shannon Campbell for twentieth in slalom as the third scorer to a third place day! The Ski Way provides very gentle terrain so the racers had to have a sensitive touch on the snow while skiing the aggressive line. This gave everyone an opportunity to dip into any speed skiing experience they had in their quiver.

William Hadden IV pulls into the GS start house at the Dartmouth Carnival.

Nic and Alex R leave the GS start house with serious aggression.

(Make sure you click the pictures - priceless facial expression)

Amy is doing her pre-race visualization. Clearly its game time.

Gangsta Gangsta

The Carters had us over to their wonderful Vermont home for a team dinner on Friday night.

Laurel's sister and mom, happy in front of the wood stove

They made their famous ice cream cake for desert with special decoration on top.

Jerry and Geordie

Geordie, Shannon, Sean, Eirik (last year's assistant coach), and Nic

Kristina and Shannon

Since Eirik is in grad school at Dartmouth and Emily wasn't too far away,

we had some of the old crew back together at the start of the slalom.

Skis are brushed and ready to go

Shannon rockets out of the start

The boys shake out their legs before run two of slalom

We are gearing up for awards - everyone is excited to see Geordie stand on the podium

A podium for Laurel last week and one for Geordie this week - not too shabby, girls!

And Kristina sets off for World Championships Today!

We will keep you posted - have fun and get it, girl!