Week #2-Day#2-Groundhog Day #7
Up & out the door by 5:05 AM. After passing through Rhododendron US #26 starts to rise up towards Timberline and the highway sign provided us a hint of things to come. It flashed intermittently between "Timberline Road" and "Winter Driving Conditons Exist".
"Oh NO! More SNOW! Mr. Bill"
Timberline Road is 6 miles long and turning off of US #26 the mile markers count down mile 5 to 4 to 3, etc. The road started out wet and as the photo's below show it turned to snow at mile marker 4 and by the top of the road it was an all out snowstorm.
"Merry Christmas from Timberline!"
Those of us with 4-wheel drive headed up while the rest of the campers stayed down in Govy awaiting a road report. I was skeptical as to whether or not the vans could make it up and what happened next is sure to become Sailer Camp lore.
"Is anyone home? We need the road plowed!"
Pictured above is the O-DOT road maintenance building at the intersection of US #26 & Timberline Road. Erich went and knoocked on every door until he woke someone up from the maintenance crew and told them to get out and plow the road; and plow the road they did.
"Is that Erich driving the plow?"
"Congratulations you are on 'stand-by'"
As always with weather conditions like this Timberline is on "stand-by" until it is deemed safe to open. More & more camps started showing up and today was Day #1 for our friends from Team Gilboa who arrived at the same time as the Sailer campers.
"Everyone from Team Gilboa was all smiles"
"Playing cards on stand-by"
"The Gilboa crew biding their time"
"Gilboa coach Pete Maxwell is in the house"
"My Dad won't stop playing Angry Birds!"
At 7:30 Timberline made the call, the Mile would be open & Palmer would be closed for the day. This meant that it would be free-skiing drills for all campers which is much better than losing the day because the area being closed.
"Hmmm, what do we have here?"
"Perfect, FIS legal Super-G's for drills"
"We go out in 8 groups for free-skiing drills"
Free-skiing & drills are fantastic but when Dave, Tyler & myself go out on the hill it is to observe the athletes in gates to assess and trouble-shoot equipment issues. This being the case we headed back down to Welches to catch up on test recording, laundry and a little rest.
"I could swear the plow driver looks like Erich"
The remainder of the day was spent tuning and setting up test skis with Dave solving boot fit issues for some of the campers.
Dave looking at Resi's boot fit
The evening meeting recognized the efforts of both the athletes and coaches for the day; with Resi receiving top honors. It is Resi's last night as she will be leaving after training is over tomorrow; and she will be missed. Hopefully we will be with her again at next year's camp.
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