Wednesday, November 25, 2009

On Foot & On Snow

Thanksgiving Camp at last. We drove up last night - a painless drive since there's no snow anywhere in the East to mess up the roads. Almost no snow, that is - Foret has a 1km loop of manmade snow, and yes, we came all this way just to ski on it. We almost got shut out this morning - they're limiting access to reduce the crowding, and at first it sounded like we'd be out of luck. Fortunately, we were able to get a reservation for the afternoon, which made our morning hiking session much more enjoyable. We hiked/bushwhacked up the side of the downhill ski area - the base was shrouded in fog, but as we hiked up we broke out into bright sunshine and found ourselves looking down on the fog bank - pretty amazing view. At the top we discovered a great trail and did some running before heading back down to get ready for our ski.



At Foret, we skated the loop for 2+ hours - it was outstanding. The snow is pretty beat up, but it felt great just to be out on skis again. We did some productive technique work - I was pretty pleased with how the team looked in their first day on snow. In spite of the repetition, no one's bored yet - if the next 4 days are similar, I'll be thrilled. Unfortunately, it's raining right now and the forecast is ominous - we'll hope for the best tomorrow.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Jeff's stellar performance today. He's the best (only?) French speaker in our group, and he helped things go smoothly this afternoon by handling communications with the staff at Foret. I was grateful and impressed - obviously he brought more than malaria home from his Madagascar trip.

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