Bowdoin Nordic: Wyoming Trip

Although this blog has been quiet lately, all sorts of good stuff is happening around here. The students have been back for about a month. From what I've heard, the skiers have done a great job of keeping up with the training. Official practices start up on Saturday with our first fitness testing session, so we'll have plenty to report soon. For now, here's a blog post from Tyler - a recap of his August trip to Wyoming with several other Bowdoin Nordic skiers.

James and I flew out to Jackson, Wyoming on August 13^th for a three week stint of visiting friends, peak bagging, great training and lots of r and r. Here is what the town of Jackson looks like from the top of the local ski mountain Snow King (about 8000 ft):

On our first day at altitude, Alec and Riley (who were driving through from Truckee), Tess, James and I classic rollerskied up Teton pass. When I say classic ski however I mostly mean dinosaur walked on rollerskis because the bike path was very long and very steep. That afternoon we all (now including Rainer and his roommates) duckied/kayaked a part of the Snake River. Here is a picture of us on the trip up Teton Pass, Tess was taking the picture.

Three days into the trip a bunch of us went on a 26 mile hike in Grand Teton National Park. We took the Jackson Hole Ski Resort gondola up to the top of Rendezvous Mountain (about 10,500 ft.) and then did a long hike that traversed ridges, valleys, canyons and basins in the Teton Range. Wilson had driven all night to meet us at the trail head and I was still sucking wind from the altitude so he and I took a shorter way down that still turned out to be 20+ miles. It was fantastic. Here are Tess and Alec on the hike, with the Grand Teton in the back, and some tasty wild raspberries Wilson and I found on the hike down.

Pete Philips, the old Burke Mountain Academy Coach now coaches for the Jackson Hole Ski Club, and I arranged to be able to meet up with him a few times for workouts. James and I got a good technique session with Pete and were able to go to the gym with the club. Our first strength session was way harder than we were expecting and we could barely walk the next day; we hobbled most of our 1.5 hour recovery run through Cache Creek.

Henry and his family came into town around the seventeenth and they were kind enough to bring us to an orchestra and dinner out. The orchestra played at Teton village and did wonderful versions of a couple Tchaikovsky pieces. Henry then stayed with us at Rainer’s place for the next week. We were able to do a great double pole session on a bike path overlooking the Grand Teton, go on a twenty mile hike/run in the Tetons and explore more of the town while he was here. Here are a couple of pictures of the hike.

Henry went back for a fishing trip with his dad on Friday the 23^rd and Rainer, James and I followed a day later to go backpacking for three days in the Wind River Range near Lander. The drive to Lander is beautiful. We stopped at the Austin’s house for directions and then drove up Sinks Canyon to the trail head (You all should look up why Sinks Canyon is so awesome).

I had the wonderful experience of slipping and slicing open my leg on the first night of our trip. Rainer did a pro job of cleaning and wrapping it up and I hobbled out eight and a half miles the next morning. Henry’s mom and sister had the surprise of finding me bandaged up and sitting on their front porch when they got home that afternoon and Henry’s mom was kind enough to bring to the ER for what would turn into five stitches and a nice bottle of antibiotics. Luckily, although the puncture was deep, it was right in the soft tissue between the tibia (shin bone) and shin muscle, so I rested it for a day and then went straight back to training, albeit a little sore). Although I would truly enjoy getting to tell stories of a leg injury occurring during an epic fight with a bear the truth is that the cut came from slipping on a rock while running to take pictures of Rainer fly fishing (sigh). Rainer and James had a great rest of their trip in the Winds and I got to know the Austin family and did some sweet mountain biking while I waited for their return. Thank you Austin family for dealing with my injuries!

From top to bottom: the drive up Sinks Canyon, the cut, James and Rainer with Wind River Peak (13,192ft.) in the background, the city of Lander from one of my mountain bike rides.

Wilson drove back into Jackson the day of our return and the next day he James and I packed up to head to Yellowstone for a couple of days of adventuring. On our way up we stopped for a threshold workout. Half way through our first interval we were up on an exposed ridge and got caught in an enormous lightening storm. The storm looked something like this. It was pretty exciting and terrifying.

We did lots of touristy things like visit Old Faithful, the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and lots of cool thermal pools and colorful mineral deposits. The next day we went on a 23 mile hike that traveled up Black Canyon along the Yellowstone River for a while. Here is a cool picture of bighorn sheep and a nice view of the Yellowstone River.