Girl Time

The 2 week camp we have in which all the U.S. Ski Team ladies, plus a few other fast chicks come to AK are 2 weeks I look forward to every summer. Not only do we get to train super hard, do some epic workouts, and ski, I get a chance to catch up with ski friends from around the country. We spent the first week training around Anchorage and the second week we went to the glacier for a week of skiing. Thanks teammates and coaches for taking awesome pictures.

Our last day we persevered through some cold rain for a 3+ hour ski. Talk about tough babes!

Gathering at the junction

Every year, we have had an international guest join us for camp. This year we were lucky enough to have Norwegian National Team member Celine Brun-lie to join us. Celine is a great skier and awesome person. I glad to have had the opportunity to learn from her and make an international friend! She also made us tasty Norwegian treats!

Brown Cheese, berries, waffles, best breakfast ever!

Eagle glacier, looking good as always. 

Group glacier pic

The clouds closed in on the facility just as we were making our way up from Girdwood. The helicopter then had to land on the middle of the glacier and leave us there. We were abandoned on the snow for 45 minutes before Erik would come rescue us on the Pisten Bully, but no fears, we danced our hearts out to stay warm. 

Zuzana Rogers, our PT (wearing the fast and female hat above) joined us on the glacier. I have never seen someone who takes their vacation to work. I am ever grateful for her help and the support from Advanced Physical Therapy of Alaska!

Sadie and I keeping each other warm waiting for Erik

Rain Train on Eagle

We had lots of days of crazy clouds

Our dryland was highlighted by some excruciatingly hard bounding intervals

Bounding really hard

and some skating

We also had a fun race/interval workout on the glacier. Here we are charing the big hill on the sprint loop. 

Awesome Girls!

Always having fun!

We rollerskied to the top of Hatcher's Pass.

There were a bunch of cracks opening up on the glacier so the crew installed a fixed line and we would rope up to ski from the building down to where the ski trails were. It worked great and we all stayed safe!

More crazy clouds!

We had an ingredient exchange to spice up the food on the glacier, making for some tasty meals!

One of the cracks opening up. eeeek

After camp, a few of us headed to Holly's cabin in Hope where we enjoyed a relaxing day in the sun!

Holly's amazing cabin!

The road from the top of Hatchers Pass

The bear made a stop by as well. Unfortunately, this bear become too humanized and had to be euthanized. Don't let bears eat trash!

I have been known for hating salads pretty much my whole life. Sadie really took care of me and made this salad for me the last night.

But don't worry, since I have started my own vegetable garden, I have become more fond of real salads. Here is the first salad I ate from my garden!

The gourmet dinner my cook crew made on the glacier

On a recovery hike in Hope!

Fireweed Season!

Awesome Views. Thanks Holly for hosting. 

Till next year Eagle

Special Thanks for Erik Flora, Don Hearing, Mike Matteson, and Andre Lovett for working so hard to make the glacier possible. I had a great 2 weeks this season skiing and made some huge gains! Girls Camp was great. I am happy, fitter, and tired!

4th of July Recovery Week

Post-glacier we always get a chance to recuperate from camp. This is great because we get to go on adventures outside of Anchorage while enjoying some relaxing days. We also lucked out because summer decided to come for the week as well. We headed south to Seward with the rest of the state to watch Mt. Marathon, the crazy race in which people climb a mountain and fall down it at the same time. On our way down, we ran Lost Lake, a trail that I have been wanting to run for some time now, but due to my plethora of injuries have never been able to. It took us about 3 hours which is the longest run I have gone on in 2 years! I was very happy to say the least. Then we camped on the beach and it was even warm enough to take a dip in the ocean! Lastly, we hiked the mountain to offer support for our crazy teammates that decided to race. I also made it to the top for the first time, again something I have never done thanks for the many injuries I have procured. It was a great week of adventures and a great way to spend some time not thinking about training before we head into the next camp.

Beach Camping

Post Swim

How many boys does it take to build a fire? 

Sadie halfway up Mt. Marathon

Teammate Holly Leading on the way down. She managed to hold her lead by a mere 2 seconds!

Teammate Ann crushing the downhill

Teammate Lauren on her descent

The crowd at the bottom as Eric Strabel, APU coach, makes it to the bottom of the cliffs. He smoked the field! And yes the races come down those cliffs that are quite large. If you look closely, you can see Eric just above the head of the man in the blue BP shirt to get some perspective. This race is insane. 

Mt. Marathon is nuts as I'm sure I've blogged about every 4th since arriving in Alaska so if you are curious or can't remember, look back at other posts from around the 4th or just google it. It's very much in line with everything in Alaska, a little bigger and a lot crazier.

Seward beach, a favorite place of mine

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Me on a more casual descent of the mountain

Lost Lake trail

Meeting our shuttle drivers who hiked backwards to meet us at the end!

A little evening skinny dip in the ocean

We celebrated Becca and Eric Packer's birthdays over the course of the week. Good thing I love baking!

I also had a surprise when I returned to Anchorage. My friend Corey was in town visiting! Corey and I spent many summers adventuring together as kids and this was the first time I had seen him since we graduated high school! 

The U.S. Ski team women arrived at the end of our break for our annual camp. The next two weeks will be filled with even more training than usual and a whole lot of chicks. Check back for that report!

Back to Winter

Glacier Camp 1 has come and gone! It turned out to not be a great week of weather in the Anchorage area and I was actually thankful to be 6000 ft up where the less than ideal weather came in the form of snow. It felt like winter with wet, heavy snow falling most days and nights, making for some amazing skiing even if we couldn't see more than a few feet in front of us for the majority of the kilometers covered. I am really pleased with my training. My injuries all behaved, I was able to ski quite a bit, and had some big technical breakthroughs, not to mention lots of k's with my teammates!

In the meantime, Mr. Bear has been causing havoc on our street.

Clouds moving in

Here they come

I could see out my window when I arrived and then it snowed everyday...

We sleep in bunk rooms and there are no shades on the windows so I am a big fan of making a princess palace by enclosing my bunk with blankets to make it dark and cozy. 

My palace where I sleep 1-2 hours during the day and another 8-10 at night, a must when we ski 4-5 hours a day. 

The last day we were graced with beautiful bluebird skies for a sold 3 hour ski. 

We have a slightly modified course this year that features more technical terrain, which is a real weakness of mine. Thanks Erik for all the grooming and making me work on my weaknesses!

The groomer!

Heli coming in for landing. We were unable to hike out because it snowed so much, the avalanche and rock slide danger were quite significant. 

The snow came up to the building so we could literally ski out the door. 

Flying back down into the green. 

When I got back, my plants had really drown big from all the rain followed by sun!

Girls psyched on finishing our team sprint race

Cruising in the fog. Thanks Rossignol, T2, Toko, Rudy Project, and PowerBar for keeping me fueled, fast, and stylish. 

Can't see a thing, but always a smiling when we are skiing!

A little strength session

Sadie and I fueling up for a big ski

All the awesome APU girls

Upon landing back in town, the sun was burning strong and it was nearly Becca's birthday so we hit the beach for a
little celebrating! Great way to end a great camp!

In other exciting news, Erik Flora, my coach and the head coach of APU won coach of the year for the entire USOC, meaning all sports in the U.S.  This is quite the honor and I am super psyched to have had the past years to work with him. He literally works day and night and he is very deserving of this award! read about it here: http://usskiteam.com/news/us-olympic-committee-announces-2013-coaches-year