Saturday is a short day up on the snowfield. After 6 straight days of awesome training you can sense that everyone needs a break. The first 2 hours of training is solid skiing and then the athletes start to go through the motions.
While dead calm in the parking lot it was windy and cool on top of the Palmer. The snow was a bit tricky as it was too cold to salt but it was not frozen very deep.
At 7:10 AM before any of the racers were at the top, Uros foreran both Group 1 & 2's courses and in the process left two beautiful and perfect trenches the entire way down the hill. I will not divulge his age but in the 17 years I have worked with him he has not lost a step.
It was windy enough where all of the panels had to be "bow-tied". This reduces the amount of wind that the panels catch, otherwise the gates get blown down flat making it impossible to ski the correct line; which is hard enough for our Central racers when it comes to GS.
Former Sailer camper Kristina Lindstrom and her father Jim made their annual pilgrimage to Mt. Hood. Fine memories that go back over 15 years have resulted in generously celebrating Kristina's birthday by taking the Sailer camp coaches to dinner at Timberline Lodge.
By 12:06 we had returned over 30 pair of skis to the Test Centers and it was off to the Oregon coast and "The Schooner".
We have come to the Schooner for the past 15 years and it has evolved from two trailer homes pushed together to what is now considered as one of "Oregon's 10 Best Restaurants outside of Portland".
We hung out at the Schooner for close to 3 hours recording test results, playing cribbage and blogging and then it was off to Cape Lookout State Park.
Week #1 is in the books (it was awesome!) and while we hate to see many of our buddies leave we are looking forward to the new campers that arrive tomorrow.