Jasper!

We had a great few days of training in Jasper with a long day of training including both cycling and rollerskiing on the scenic Icefields Parkway between Jasper and Banff sandwiching an easier day where we enjoyed a run in Jasper. We are almost halfway through this period of training, so far so good!

Joel took a few photos while standing on the side of the road:

The Boys Peloton...



The Girls- much less of a peloton, we need more!




Coach Eric practicing his gun show...


Until next time,

First one Down

We survived our first Haig Camp of the season! We did lots of snowshoeing, rock-shoeing, and tree shoeing, as well as a bit of skiing.
Most of our time was spent on a more modern version of these:


The Haig has a new webcam which can be found here: http://www.winsportcanada.ca/images/haig.jpg

There is way more snow than we have ever seen up there, so we are heading to Jasper for our next 3 day stint, and then back to the glacier!

Going to the Glacier!

Tomorrow is the first day of our hardest training block of the year. In the next three weeks we will make four separate trips up to the glacier. This first one should be interesting, as there is still a lot of snow up high, I've never been in this early, but I've heard plenty of stories of the three hour run being more like a six hour post-hole. We will be equipped with snowshoes, but it is sure to be an adventure, especially since the weather forecast is calling for thunder storms.

The glacier is always a good place to do some solid training, although as I get older I do prefer the shorter visits to the week long stints up there. The massive sleepover, where we are all essentially in one room was more fun when I was seventeen.

As long as the helicopter can fly our gear in we will start our run in tomorrow morning, and I'll do my best to update every time we come down... however by the last time it might be hard for me to put together words that make any sense.

The Road Trip Home

We left bend a few days ago en route back to Canmore, after about four hours of driving the truck we had rented got a flat tire, so somewhere in the middle of no where Washington we pulled over and the photo documentary began...


Middle of no where Washington...


The Boys putting their heads together...


Old tire off new one on.


Now we need a tire to take us back to Canmore. Les Schwab Perfect!


Our friendly mechanic named... wait for it... Butch!


Butch's favourite lunch spot


30 minutes and 14 dollars later Butch put our spare back and sent us on our way.

Milkshakes and Monsoons

I realize that milkshakes have little or nothing to do with skiing, but I happen to love them, and I also happened to have a great milkshake experience last night.
First I will say that until yesterday my greatest milkshake experience was at the Deep River Dairy Bar. In my years traveling the Ontario Cup circuit with Nakkertok we would regularly stop between Ottawa and North Bay, Sudbury, Timmins, wherever in Northern Ontario we happened to be going. The chocolate peanut butter milkshake, extra thick with banana was my all time favourite milkshake. I haven't been to the Deep River in probably ten years, but I certainly remember it fondly. Then yesterday we went for an ice cream outing after dinner here in Bend and happened upon a great spot (it wasn't really chance, I did some serious research). Anyway it was a most delicious treat to have a chocolate peanut butter malt with banana, so good in fact that I thought about it for the first hour of my ski this morning in the pouring rain.
It was pouring rain when we arrived on the mountain today, after an hour of skiing I did a complete change of clothes, and rang about a cup of water out of my gloves. I called it quits after the second hour, but I'd say that I probably would not have had such a good ski if it weren't for that milkshake.