Dartmouth Carnival

For the fourth year in a row, the Dartmouth Carnival was held at Craftsbury.  Conditions were absolutely perfect - tons of cold, fresh snow and nice wide, challenging trails.  The event was a combined carnival/SuperTour/Eastern Cup, so it was pretty chaotic and very competitive.  A skate sprint got things started on Friday.  The whole crew was pretty feisty out there, working the transitions and scrapping for every second, but in the end Hannah Miller was our only qualifier in the stacked field.  She qualified in 11th and went on to finish 3rd in her heat for a final place of 14th (7th in the college race - a career best).  Mac led the men in 34th for college skiers, a PR for him as well.  The following day was a 10/10k skate - H. Miller put up another top 10 EISA finish (8th, and 17th overall) to cap an outstanding weekend.  With several of our top skiers out, we got solid performances from our first-years, including August and Rachel, who scored for the team for the team for the first time ever.  This crew is still learning, and it'll take a lot of hard work and patience before they can be consistently competitive at the collegiate level, but this race was an encouraging sign of progress and a nice bit of payoff for their season-long efforts.

There was still one more race on the slate after the carnival had finished - a 10/15k mass start classic on Sunday.  Since this was a JN qualifier, Ellie and Mac stayed in VT with Sarah in an effort to score some good qualifying points.  Conditions were tough - steady snowfall throughout the day made both races a grind - but both Mac and Ellie had solid races and put themselves in position to have a shot at making the JN team heading into the final weekend of qualifying.

Here are some photos courtesy of Everett Marshall: