Thanksgiving Camp 2023 was a bit different. And when I say "different," I mean filled with rocks, grass, dirt. But - we had a great camp anyway! And we somehow managed to ski every day with no rollerskiing. Here's how it happened:
- Instead of leaving campus on Tuesday afternoon, we left early on Wednesday morning. On our way across Vermont we stopped at Craftsbury for a long ski on their lovely little ribbon of snow. The folks at Craftsbury do an amazing job with snowmaking/farming, and they'd put together a great loop with a remarkable variety of terrain. It was a perfect way to break up the drive and get a nice workout to start the camp.
- We spent the next three days in Lake Placid searching for every scrap of snow we could find and skiing on it. That's not an exaggeration - we literally skied on anything that looked white and frozen. On Thanksgiving, Leslie discovered a frosted golf course and we skied along the edges where the snow had collected - surprisingly good skiing! Next, Aggie and Will discovered an unplowed road and hiking trail with just enough coverage, and we pieced together an intensity workout of sorts (we came out of this one with some new rock skis). People also explored the trails around Mt. Van Hovenberg, skiing back and forth on little patches of snow and piecing them together to make a decent workout. By Saturday we were ready for some groomed trails, and most of the crew went down to Rikert, where they'd made enough snow to groom their stadium area - about 400 meters if you skied it in a loop. It was a beautiful day, and our people had a fun time racking up laps and working on technique - some of them managed to ski 50k by the end. While we were spinning laps, a small group back in Placid drove up to the Whiteface toll road, where a tiny dusting of snow had fallen on the icy asphalt - again, surprisingly good skiing!
- Throughout all this excitement, there was some quality team cooking as usual. Thanksgiving dinner was a gigantic chaotic mess that somehow coalesced into an amazing meal - turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, mushroom gravy, pumpkin rolls, roasted veggies, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, green beans wrapped in bacon, many pies, and probably lots of other good stuff I'm forgetting. As always, our team has so much to be thankful for, and this meal together was the latest example. We also had a couple of great team dinners as part of our cooking competition: chili and grilled cheese with brownies, and tortilla soup with guacamole and molassas cookies. So lucky to have a team of capable chefs!
- We ended camp the way we started, with a stop at Craftsbury on our way home. This time, we were able to jump into a time trial with several other college and club teams - a really nice opportunity to challenge ourselves against great competition and get the rust off. The rust was definitely there, but this was a really fun and productive day for us - the team looked strong and technically solid, and we've definitely got a good foundation to build on. Huge thanks to Ollie Burruss and the Craftsbury staff for putting together great early season skiing and hosting this event!
After recovering with some lower key dryland days, we started chasing snow again, with three good days at Quarry Road culminating in the Quarry Road Opener - another mini-carnival with great competition. With a couple more days of skiing under our belts, we were a bit sharper for this one. Emma made the 3rd step of the podium, and the women packed the top 10 - Jori 4th, Morgan 6th, Aggie 7th, Ingrid 8th, and Kira 9th. Sawyer led the men in 4th - an amazing performance by one of the youngest skiers on our team! We followed this up the next weekend with a pair of team time trials - a carnival rehearsal consisting of a 20k classic and a skate sprint. This was quite an exhausting weekend, especially coming just before exams, but also a great chance to get in a couple race-like efforts and go through the motions of race day. Zach and Morgan took the wins in the 20k, and Carson and Jori won the sprint. It was such a gift to do several workouts and races on snow in December - like Craftsbury, Quarry Road does so much for New England skiing, and we're so grateful for all of their hard work.
After exams wound down, the crew took off for break, and several people were able to jump into races all over the country - Vermont, Wisconsin, Alaska, and right back at Quarry Road for the Roy Varney Memorial Eastern Cup. The big highlight of this weekend was Jori's second place finish in the Eastern Cup classic sprint against an outstanding field of college skiers and top juniors. All of this was a great way to build momentum going into the break. We'll be back in just a couple weeks for Jan Camp, but for now everyone's enjoying some quality time with friends and family. Happy holidays everyone!
