Tuesday, April 17, 2012

2012 National Academy Day 2

Well, as usual, its been a great adventure already, and we are only on day 2. I have to say that the PSIA National Academy is really one of the most fun gatherings I've ever done. Its SO well put together, the value is great, and the education is amazing. Last night, Rob Sogard gave a talk on Interski and the future of education from the teams perspective, and tonight, US Ski Team coach Ron Kipp gave a talk on the Science of Skiing, which was just awesome.

Katie Ertl gets the Excellence in Education award from PSIA at the first night banquet, along with Linda Crockett and Dave Merriam.
I'm skiing in Katie's group, which is silly, because, well, I work with her, but I don't get to ski with her very much, and she's just awesome to ski with! She is so easy and light, yet so solid and aggressive on her skis, she's inspirational to watch.


Susan and Catherine ready to RIP!
The group is awesome, super willing to ski ANYWHERE, and one of our group members, Jeff, is a local, so we are hiking and traversing and skiing all over the place. The nice thing is that we are not going a bazillion miles an hour, so I'm getting my feet all over the mountain but not skiing myself into the ground, which is great.
Mineral Basin full of winter snow

So far, my afternoon electives have been hot tubbing, napping, and taking a quick run up to Alta. I'm getting yoga in on the floor in the corner during the indoor presentations, but haven't got to class yet.

Dropping in at the end of the Knucklehead Traverse
The snow is amazing, the first day it was thick, about 13" of fresh snow over partial refreeze, not a lot of bumps, and its cold, about 31 degrees. The visibility was really rough, and everyone was SUPER excited to jump into the deep snow.

The groups sorted themselves out and we made our way into Mineral Basin, where the bookends were in good shape.

Jeff leads us on endless adventures
The next morning, Jeff took us on an adventure out the Knucklehead traverse and into the Baldy chutes. I'm so impressed with the high level of skiing in the group, and the fact that the group is really interested in tweaking their skiing, and talking about teaching concepts while we adventure everywhere.

I can't wait to see what the next few days brings!

1 comment:

Catherine Cleveland said...

Hi Kate, I like your blog! Thank you for documenting National Academy!