Jackson Hole III

I was laying on the ground next to a couple of my other ski racer friends listening to some music to pump me up before my start.  Everyone around me was singing along and having a great time.  Number forty was in the start gate and I was getting stoked to send it!!  I stripped down to my speed suit from all of my warm up clothes that I had on.  I boot skied down to the start to cheer on some of my team mates before my run.  Scottie was in the gate “Go Scooch!!” all of us yelled as he pulled out of the start.  This went on for around ten more racers until I had to go click in for my run.

Thump Thump went my boots as my coach Cam knocked the snow off of the bottoms of them.  Cam said to me, “Alright Ben when you pull out of the start gate you want to put your foot in the groove and ride it out.  The track is getting a little sketchy and the ruts are deep.  All you got to do is ski athletically and do what you do.  Have fun Ben Good luck.”  I told him thanks and slid down to the beginning of the start gate.  There was around five racers in front of me so I was going through the course in my head trying to remember where I need to nail the course.

Before I knew I was in the start gate with the gate keep saying, “Racer Ready? Go!”  I pulled as hard as I could out of the gate towards the first gate.  The visibility was terrible and I could barely see seven gates in front of me.  Not only that but the ruts in the course were so deep I was basically jumping to each turn.  I was around half way down the course and I got flung from a rut to one side and ended up skiing backwards for five feet or so and managed to make the gate and turn my skis back around.  The best part about this run for me was not the quality of my skiing but how much fun I was having going down the course.  It was on of the most thrilling courses that I have ever skied so thrilling I was laughing through part of it and if you know me you know that is not usual for a ski race.

Jackson Hole II

Jackson Hole Tram

Click.. Click… go my skis as I push towards to first lift to get up near the race course.  Everyone is treating this race as a sort of training race so to speak so all of the racers are having a lot of fun in the lift line.  My friend had his speaker in his backpack playing some pump up music all of the people were hootin’ and hollerin’.  The lift ride was around five minutes long which led us to another lift which was about the same.  Like I said in the earlier post right as I got off of the chairlift I saw the run that we were racing on that I know so well.  Seeing the start gate and all of the officials and coaches gave me the jitters but not the scared jitters more of the excited jitters.  Everyone took one or two inspections and then they were left with a couple hours of free time while the hill was prepped.  I bet you can guess what I am going to go do, yah that right go ski the fresh foot of powder that fell the night before for us.

Aydon, Trey, Cassidy and I (ski racer friends) walked up to the tram which always has powder full fun all the way down no matter what.  Although we were all stoked we had to stop at the notorious waffle shack at the top of the tram.  After a quick pit stop we were off shredding down, face shot after face shot and cliff after cliff having the time of our lives.  One thing that I really like about the tram is that after you finish one amazing run it leads down the cat track to another assortment of terrain to choose from.  At the end of a tram lap you have skied at least four or five runs all together and you have that sweet burn deep inside of your legs.  That is what I feel skiing should be like, whatever you want right in front of you and endless fun to experience.

Once the exhilaration and excitement left our bodies we realized that we had to go race!  Jumped on the two four seater chairlifts and got in the mental zone for our runs that have yet to come.  Although this race did not have a lot on the line I still like to practice getting in the right state of mind before a race run.  It was only half an hour away and the energy in the start gate was unreal…

To Be Continued….

Jackson Hole

Corbet's Couloir (famous run)

Recently, I traveled to Jackson Hole, Wyoming for my frist ski race fo the year!  The race was originally supposed to be held in Park City (my home town) but we did not have enough snow on the race hill to host this race.  Which is why i had to travel to Jackson Hole.  I was very excited at this news because Jackson Hole is my favorite ski resort I have ever been to due to all of the challenging terrain and endless powder every time I go there.  It was around seen in the morning and I loaded up the ski gear and settled in for the long six hour long drive to the big Jackson Hole!

Due to my restlessness the drive felt like three days!  After a couple naps and a lot of junk food later I was at the parking lot of the Jackson Hole ski resort.  We had to train right as we got there so we had absolutely no time to unpack our clothes or anything just straight up to the slopes.  After entering the lodge I was flooded from memories from the races from the years before which raised my mood even more and got me pumped to get on my skis!

20 minutes later

I reached the top of the apres vous lift and saw the run that we were going to be racing on that weekend.  There was a couple other teams that were also training on that run at the time and we set our course right next to theirs.  The temperature was around ten degrees and we had to strip down into only our speed suits which was completely and utterly freezing (one of the down sides about ski racing).  After a few training runs we were packing up and heading to the hotel rooms to get unpacked and prep our skis for the upcoming race the next day.

12 hours later

It was around six fifteen in the morning when our alarm went off and my roommates and I (Shane and Charlie) struggled to get out of bed and get ready for the day before us.  We were supposed to go on an early morning run and warmup for the race but we decided that would nt be beneficial (we were wrong)….  Moping around slowly getting our ski clothes on eating as much food as we could fit in us before it was time to leave which was only in around half an hour at that time.  Of course we were the last kids out to the van and the only kids that didn’t go on the morning run so our coaches were not to happy with us at that time.  We hopped in the van and were on our way back to the legendary mountain for some real skiing and racing!

To Be Continued…..