Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Day Two of National Academy 2009 in Snowbird!

WOW, I always forget just how much fun it is to be here in Snowbird. Hanging out with a huge group of people who are just as rabily intense about skiing as I am, watching ski movies, going hard all day... its incredible!

Yesterday, we had day two with our coaches, so another morning with Mike Hafer, we skied Mineral Basin all morning because everything else was so rock hard! I was feeling more like myself, but I as it warms, the mank gets so thick and deep, its absolutely unbelievably challenging to ski in. And its a bit scary, because its melting out so fast, there are huge chunks of debris that roll down the hill and leave enormous runnels two feet deep in the snow, skiing through one of those can be surprisingly difficult!

I'm skiing in a tshirt under my shell, its sunny and very very warm. I'm psyched to learn more solid technique for getting through this kind of snow, for being able to make the ski work when its trapped under a foot and a half of thick monkey snot!

Hafer had us focusing on reaching or extending the outside leg, getting long in the Apex, and trying to get to a flatter ski earlier, while still shaping the end of the turn.

I shot a bunch of photos with Andy Hawk's camera yesterday, and that was super fun as well, there's not enough time in the day to blog and do photos... alright, well, I might have run out of time due to the extended hot tubbing session... wow, that felt good!

In the afternoon, I skied with Bob Barnes from Winter Park, and I had this idea that I was going to get down below the group and shoot photos, but Bob gets off the tram, hops off the road, dives down into silverfox and just takes off, and doesn't stop until he gets to the tram deck. Yes. For real. Bumps, chutes, trees, high speed traverses full of huge whoopties, we did it like five times in a row.

I've never skied Snowbird top to bottom without stopping, this guy is an animal! It was awesome. Just truly super fun. And man, you better make the ski work in the thick stuff at those speeds, or its gonna hurt!!

Last night was Justin's 26th Birthday, he's a kid from Vail in my group, and we all went down to the Tram Deck club to hear some great music. The whole team went out to support their friend, who used to be a racer, and who now is dedicating himself to a music career, (he's very much like Jack Johnson). There was quite a bit of Tequila and Yagermeister going on, the music was nice, the company was fun... and now its time to go do it again!!

Today, park and pipe all day with Dave Oliver! Yeah! Then I think I'm demonstrating the Skier's Edge machine. If I have any legs left!!

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