It’s been a few days since I’ve been able to get into the gym, or yoga hot room for that matter.  In the mean time, I’ve found myself spending quality time with good friends, and of course, my girlfriend.  I’ve even been fairly good at motivating myself to run up some short trails near Snowmass and Carbondale, though nothing is really quite like a muscle-busting workout with Spencer Keep or a ligament stretching yoga sesh with Kate Giampapa .

Anyway, even with a nice Sunday afternoon off, I find it difficult to stay motivated for these daily workouts.  Luckily, some stoke comes from the people that count the most: my friends.

I had a chance to meet Arly Velasquez during my trip to Mt. Hood earlier this summer as an assistant coach for the Challenge Aspen Competition Team .  Arly was attending the summer camp spectrum in a racing capacity for the NSCD out of Winter Park, CO.  When his team left Oregon, he stayed on to continue working on his skiing and racing.  He hopped in our truck and trained with us for a couple of days before we had to make our exit as well.

Check out this YouTube video Arly produced about his trip to Mt. Hood and see what I mean about his stoke.  It’s people like this that keep me motivated to get strong, stay healthy, and shred pow all over the world.

Click here to check out Arly’s Facebook page !!

After a 20 hour, two-day drive from Aspen to Oregon, Jonathan Mika (coach), Sam Ferguson (mono athlete) and I rolled into Welches, OR to a fatty spread of a condo.  After a few trips to the Portland airport to pick up the rest of the athletes the next day, our troupe of skiers were all itching to get out on the hill and get some turns.  Little did I know, there is a lot of work getting these adaptive athletes to the slopes.

With a departure time of 7am, we pulled the cars around to the athletes’ condos and began to load in mono-skis, outriggers, backpacks, helmets, wheelchairs and a ton of skis.  Somehow we managed to fit everyone and everything into the vehicles and were soon on our way through the thickest fog I’ve encountered in Oregon.  Gwen, one of the visually-impaired skier guides, let me know that this was a common phenomenon here at Mt. Hood and that the fog was actually a cloud.  She said that the biggest problem with the visibility was that it gained altitude throughout the day where it begins to cover the ski hill too.  I found this out much sooner than expected.

Three hours, more gear loading (or unloading at this point), and four runs later off the top of the volcano that constitutes Timberline Ski Area on a sheet of snow/ice known more affectionately as the Palmer Glacier, we found ourselves navigating blindly through the thickest cloud I’ve ever tried to ski through.  Mika even commented that he felt dizzy from a temporary bout of vertigo on one particularly fast run.  Now understand, when I say blindly picking our way through the treeless glacial terrain, there is a bit of irony, as our little training group includes some visually-impaired (VI) skiers, and even they had trouble with the circumstances.  Each VI skier has a guide that skis about a ski length or two in the lead and the VI skier attempts to follow the same line that the guide sets.  On a bright, blue sunny day, this is already a difficult set of tasks.  Add in almost zero visibility and that is a recipe for confusion; luckily these are some experienced guides and VI skiers!

Today being our first day on the hill and with only a few of the athletes having made the trip the weekend before to Arapahoe Basin, Kevin Jardine (head coach) decided on a simple sets of drills to kick off the week’s skiing activities.  After sitting on the couch all off-season, it was great feeling snow under my feet, and skiing with the team was great.  But more on that to follow…

Until the (very near) next time, do something cool with your time, smile at the sun, or just kick it.  I’ve gotta get back to being a coach at this Challenge Aspen summer race camp, so check back for more later!

These goggles are everywhere here at Mt. Hood! So sick.

All your outdoor gear needs!

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