sibhusky

The normal routine here is dryland training in the fall four days a week to build strength, flexibility, stamina. Then the first few days, if Siblet had been home, would have been freeskiing to get used to skis again, especially if there is new equipment. Then gate training starts. But even so, the coaches take the kids off piste on occasion because if you can handle trees, moguls, etc. on the whole mountain at speed, then you will be prepared for ANYTHING a course throws at you. Freeskiing is an important part of race training. How would Siblet have fared at Mammoth with a course like that if all she skied was a hardened run of gates? She survived ruts around the gates that were about 2 to 3 FEET deep into the darn snow as racer after racer ahead of her dug the pits deeper and deeper. If all you ski on is a ballroom dance floor your skills will be sadly lacking.

Volkl Racetigers. They weren't ready for her at Thanksgiving and we didn't want to slap her on new gear for the race, so she will pick them up tomorrow. Naturally, two pairs of skis, two pairs of new bindings, two sets of plates. $1500. So, to Doug, we could be "rich" if we still had our old income levels, lived in the little townhouse we had back in NJ, didn't have to pay for college and didn't have this daughter with an expensive sport. Oh yeah, we just got a bill for $1200 for propane. Fortunately, our property taxes are lower here. None of this type I hope. The next set of races I don't have numbers for, but no flying involved. If I don't go, could stay under $600 for the Big Sky New Year's series. I seriously don't like to add things up it would mean confronting the folly of the whole thing. If you go to the Northern USSA site and click on the info for some of the races, you can get a feel for the expenses involved. http://www.northernussa.com We are going to get off easy this year as Siblet will not be cutting college to go to races, only attending "local" races or ones that occur while she is on vacation.

You can race as an independent, in which case either you have to attend all the coaches' meetings or you have to find a coach to represent you at those meetings. Siblet may go as an independent to one race where her team is not going. We'll see how that works, but I am hoping to use the Bridger Coach to represent her at that race. Normally the coaches do the driving, get the bibs and tickets, pay the hotel bill, coordinate meals, take videos of each day's racing and discuss it later that day with the kids. They may also (if no tech is there) assist with ski tuning and sharpening. You can see that a lot of that may fall on the racer if there is no coach. Going to a strange resort and handling all of this extraneous stuff in addition to the racing could easily be too much for some of these kids. And actually, since Siblet is only 18, most rental car agencies won't even rent her a car. For the one race where we have an issue, it may be ME going down to help her out. Which would cost just as much as having to pay for the coach. It was a LOT cheaper skiing back East, most of the places were within a day or a few hours drive and you didn't have airfares and rarely had hotel expenses.

Expense Per athlete cost Lodging $275.00 Coaches expenses 455.00 Race Entries 140.00 Lifts 200.00 Administration Fee 20.00 Total Due to Divison $1090.00 Airfare: 660.80 Walking around/lunch money: 200.00 Total so far: $1950.80 Doesn't include extra night in Budget Motel, or cost to switch vehicles. MIGHT get a couple of race entry fees back. Basically paying for the coaches travel expenses and their time is the killer. Our team sent only two kids, Siblet and her friend. Plus the coach. Now, he was acting as a "divisional coach", but there were two other coaches as well, plus possibly a ski technician for the division.

This is turning out to be the "perfect trip". The final race just got cancelled due to rain. Let's see, it was about $2000 for TWO races? And all the expenses aren't in yet. Oh, and the weather tomorrow is just perfect for a flight to land at some OTHER airport. That happened to her team mate a few weeks back.

I've used boot dryer sticks (those $25-$35 things) for years. I leave them in for days and days, keeping them warm until they go on my feet again. Never a problem.

This just in. She got within a point of yesterday. So far we only know the FIS points. The USSA translation of those points will take a couple of days. The combination of these two results from a FIS perspective could worsen her points by about 10 points. But she has a couple more big races coming up in January that could help and by then she will have loads more training in, PLUS NEW EQUIPMENT.

MSU has a race team, but she is not on it, she is still racing for Big Mountain. She needs to lower her points to be within the NCAA range. But, it would be a lot to be a freshman AND ski NCAA. She wanted to wait a year as well because she wanted to be able to keep up her grades. So, she is getting some training at Bridger when she is at school and training here when she is home. I forget what I ate when I was in Bozeman. That's what six hours of driving and three snow storms along the way will do to you. Then the same in reverse the next day on the way home. Update. Another SL today. Course was in better condition. She started in 68th place today, but midway into the course her pole fell off her hand and was dangling from her wrist. As you all know, they whack the gates in SL, so the precious knuckle protection wasn't there. It was two gates before she regained her pole so she lost a lot of time. We are still awaiting results at this point, but she thinks she finished worse than yesterday overall. She says the wind is horrible...so horrible that she actually LOWERED A BAR on the chair and was hanging on for her life. They had closed the whole mountain except the chair the racers were using. They discussed cancelling her race, but held it I guess as SL as not as impacted by wind as a speed event. Tomorrow is GS, thank goodness.

Well Siblet is out racing at Mammoth this week, as is another former CAT team member, Andrew Ginnelly. Right from the bat I knew in my heart that this was utter folly to send a kid who has been at college, with only a few days on snow and only two of them in gates, off to a major FIS race. Add to that the fact that we could not book air tickets at the time the coaches wanted without having to mortgage the house and well, the stage was set. Siblet arrived in Reno (closest airport to Mammoth) around 5:20 PM last Saturday. She was meeting other teams from across the division there (division includes teams from a wide geographical area, so they were arriving on other planes) so they could form up van pools. Anyway, she throws all of her stuff on the "luggage van". EVERYTHING. Money, underwear, cell phone, toothbrush...you get the picture. Van leaves. It turns out that the team they are sharing a van with HAS MISSED THEIR CONNECTION and they don't arrive at the expected time. It'll be four more hours of waiting for them to show. Finally, they arrive and they get their rental van. It has no snow tires. (Now you have to ask yourselves what kind of brains the coach had at this point.) They take off into the Sierras in a raging blizzard which was to drop three feet of fresh snow on Mammoth over the next two days. More on that later. Anyway, needless to say, their vehicle is not making it. So (thank god) they pull off at a Budget Inn for the night. (Of course, I've already paid for lodging in Mammoth. AND all of her stuff is IN MAMMOTH!) Next morning they are on their way BACK TO RENO for another vehicle. Of course the rental of two different vehicles was also not included in the initial estimate. Finally, they are on their way again and arrive in Mammoth about 24 hours after landing in Reno. Next day, the races are cancelled due to too much snow. They've been trying to pack the course with groomers and having the racers run over it and over it and injecting it with chemicals, etc., but the fresh stuff is too deep. So, here I am thinking that the training day she lost GETTING TO Mammoth (oh, yeah, I had already paid for that ticket, too) will be returned to her. BUT NO, the coaches don't want kids wearing out or getting hurt so they ski for all of three hours. Finally, yesterday, they run a slalom. Fortunately Siblet survives, but the course is still really too soft and she can't ski the gates, she can only ski the ruts and hang on. It's like a boblsled or luge run by the time she goes, 70-some people ahead of her. Her former SO, another team member, also finishes, but with a hike. For him it's a success, his first FIS SL race he didn't DNF. For her, well, she skied in her normal points area. Not bad for her first race of the season with no training. And she's in one piece. But from a budget point of view, no payoff since no points improvement. She has perhaps two more races before she comes home. We still didn't know last night if it was going to be SL or GS. Papasteeze, skimom, once your kids are racing FIS, this is the stuff you will sweat bullets about.

My understanding is as long as you stay in your region (as opposed to your division which is PARA) you can enter him in any J4 race. You should have received a competition guide which covers all that. If not, going to the USSA site and looking for Publications should take you to the comp guide page.

20 minutes tops to my mountain (allowing for snow delays). About an hour and a half to Blacktail, I am guessing, maybe less. About an hour 45 minutes to Fernie. Three hours to Snowbowl, six hours or so to Bridger and Big Sky depending on weather. Maybe two hours to Schweitzer.

There's a difference between altitude sickness and a normal reaction to lower oxygen levels. Most people will experience a shortness of breath for a few days and tire more quickly. But some of us get SICK -- horrible headaches, pounding hearts, nausea, etc. I'm one. The only way for me to prevent or reduce the problem is to overnight in Denver.

And $81 a day lift tickets. Hopefully you've gotten some discount tickets.

Hey, I thought he was letting you share hot tubs with strange men. A race suit is nothing compared to a hot tub.

So, did you see him? Did he enjoy it here or was it too cold and insufficiently open?

Okay, I admit, I am dying to find out if she's talking about her son or some other man.

So, I ski up to this guy with a brown coat with a fur hood. He's with two friends/relatives/whatever. I say, "Are you guys by some chance from the East Coast?" They say, "How'd you know?" I say, "I recognized your jacket." Then I ask the jacket if he's got a friend who calls himself Lineski on a PA skiing message board. He says yeah, but frankly I wasn't sure he'd really understood what I said -- it was kind of an off the wall question. I tell him to tell you that "Sib says hi". Total blank look of course. Then one of the friends says again, "How'd you know we're from the East Coast?" I say, "His friend told me." Then I say "Just tell Lineski that some strange lady came up and said Hi." And I skied off. They were probably still scratching their heads an hour later.

There is a temporary park set up on the backside at the moment. I don't know when the superpipe on the front is opening. The area it will be in is out of my normal travel zone. I imagine when it opens there will be a description.

I didn't see the description of LineSki's friend until I got home, so I couldn't look for him. (What should I say to him assuming I want to talk to someone who is loud, by the way?) Today was absolutely frigid, but outstanding. The temperature was either side of zero depending on where you were on the mountain and if the clouds were blocking the sun and I had to ski with a novice skier today (who got a workout from me), but it was just an outstanding day. Get ready for some "screensaver" shots, gang! The first few are about midday, but you'll see that I hung out at the top as the sun was getting lower on the horizon until the ski patrol chased me along (they wanted to go home). Consequently, I got some great golden hour shots. Here's a link to a screenshow (which works a bit better if you hit F11 before starting): Golden Hours at Big Mountain

I was wondering that myself. But, I don't think you'd confuse him with being a "guy" like he's a teenager or something. As I recall the owner was maybe in his late 40's or so, blond hair, handsome? Didn't act like a shop rat, that's for sure.

I think you should have taken it up with them at the time or at least found out what exactly happened so that we have the facts and not guesses.

Personally, if someone treated me like that, I'd demand to see the owner IMMEDIATELY.

They are both good guys. I would have given the nod to Brad for technical prowess, except for the complaint from Atomic, which has me worried. Mark is a SUPER SUPER guy to deal with and Siblet and I owe him a lot.

Yeah, I'd like to thank him for showing up and bringing this nice snow. BUT, he's in for some really cold days. Wednesday the HIGH is supposed to be 5 degrees. What's he wear? Maybe I should keep an eye out for him.

Well, it's begun snowing in earnest. Twelve inches at my house in the last 24 hours. The mountain is reporting 21 inches in the last week, but that must not include today! I loved the ski reporter's first sentence this AM: "Hey all you weekday powderhounds, that low pay part time job is going to pay off!! " That describes me these days. Anyway, I have some pictures. It was definitely snowing all day, so no sun and plenty of low flying clouds. First two pictures are on Russ's Street, a long flat run coming off the top of the mountain. It's a green run, so had been groomed last night: Looking "down" Looking "back up hill" This is part of the way down Toni Matt, looking back at the main chair. Visibility had improved enough to take this. This is on another "groomed" run, Goat Haunt, about mid-day: My leg, you can see the snow is just below my knee. Yes, I am on a ski. (I discovered the K2 XP's are good to about boot top, then get to be a bit too narrow as we approach knee deep snow.) Looking back up Ed's Run, an ungroomed blue. This was the run that showed me my ski's limits. I started trying to turn in other people's tracks.: