On to Italia

The road show continues into Italy where I have spent the last week in and out of the Dolomites racing mostly giant slalom. Right now giant slalom or “gs” is not my best event. I have found it hard to get the timing of initiating my turn, and so it has been a bit of a struggle for me to get any results worth mentioning. However, marginal results cannot detract from the ridiculous views that skiing in the Dolomites provides. Racing in Europe is free, the race entry and lift tickets do not cost anything, making this a very affordable trip. However, even if I were paying for my lift ticket I would consider this place to be the best bang for my buck. For 35-40 Euros you can get a Dolomiti Superpass, good for over 12,000 km of skiable acres at 12 ski areas all on the same ticket! They all connect in some way (ski runs, tram, or bus) making this about 3x bigger than any ski area in the US. Crazy. I’ll post pics soon.

Anyway, tomorrow I begin the slalom portion of my race schedule, which I am very much looking forward to. I have bounced back much faster in this event and a couple of good results will turn this trip from a great experience into a successful race campaign.

Next week I will be returning to Burke for some training and working with kids in the Burke Mountain Ski & Ride program. Europe’s great an all but nothing beats being back on home snow. I’ll let you know how things end up here, talk to you soon!

Hello From Austria!

Just got off the hill after a great day of training at Hinterreit in Austria. It’s important not to confuse that with the town of Hinterreit, Austria which is about 80km away from the ski area with the same namesake. I made this mistake this morning when I plugged the location into my GPS and arrived at a very small, flat town that resembled nothing of a ski village. After some phone calls and some ribbing from the group I am training with over here they pointed me in the right direction and I barely made it in time for our training time slot.

It’s great to be skiing again after being sidelined for over 6 weeks with a broken shoulder, or more specifically a non-displaced greater tuberosity fracture. The shoulder still isn’t 100 percent but it doesn’t really hurt when I get in the course (as long as I don’t fall on it again) and it’s had plenty of time to heal by now. So I’m trying to get right back in the swing of things, and what better way to do that than book a three week trip to Europe!

Last week I had a great time training in the morning with Burke Mountain Academy and teaching lessons in the afternoon with the Burke Mountain Ski & Ride program. The Burke Mountain Ski & Ride program provides transportation, lessons, and rentals if needed to kids from around 50 schools in the surrounding area. The amount of kids that are involved is impressive, up to 500 per day Monday to Friday. I contribute by providing groups their one hour group lessons before they hit the slopes on their own for a couple of hours. The cost of the program ($10 for a pass and a one hour lesson, $5 more for a rental package) allows children from the region a chance to ski who otherwise would not have the opportunity, and I am happy to teach a bunch of motivated kids how to rip some turns! Plus, I think that working on fundamentals with the groups has actually helped me find my balance again on the snow, making it a win-win situation.

Tomorrow I begin a slew of races over here beginning with three taking place around the town of Kitzbuhel, which will be hosting the Super Bowl of ski races on Saturday, the Hahnenkahmm. There will be over 100,000 people there over the weekend, and all around us people are making preparations for the big event. As a result the night slalom I am entered at Westendorf (about 10km away) on Thursday night typically has anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 spectators, given how many top skiers will be using it as a warmup to Sunday’s World Cup Slalom. I have never been in this race and am excited to be a part of the electric atmosphere.

That’s all for now, I’ll try and remember to take some pictures over the next couple of weeks. I’m glad to be a member of ITA, without it none of this would be possible!