June...AK Style

It's hard to believe that June has come and is nearly gone already. Highlights from the past 30 days include skiing on Eagle glacier, coaching the Junior athletes at the Girdwood "Death" Camp, racing up Bird Ridge, and ski-touring above Prince William Sound.
The name of the game up at the Thomas training facility on Eagle was: eat, ski, eat, sleep, eat, ski, eat, sleep, repeat. For those of you who aren't familiar with our glacier training facility, you can read more about it in a recent article that appeared in the Anchorage Daily News HERE or you can find more pictures on some of my previous posts HERE or HERE. My new teammate and training buddy, Morgan Smyth. Morgan moved up to Anchorage from the US Ski Team's stomping grounds in Park City to train with us-- I am psyched to have her as a new training buddy. Casey the grooming guru and Erik, my coach. Erik's hair stands straight up naturally when he gets a little crusty and he's been working his tail off up there...which means it stands straight up ALL week!
Holly Brooks ready to ski in paradise. A few days later, here's a picture from nearly the same vantage point (and no photo enhancements on either picture):
My retina can feel a overloaded with the color white! Fortunately, there are wands which mark our course so we can still train when we are sitting in a cloud. On one particularly stormy camp a few years ago I tried to come up with a list of my top 10 reasons of why its better to train up there its not a blue bird day.

One thing I love about the typical Alaskan athlete's attitude is that "there's no bad weather, just bad clothing". The junior team seems to be no different and doesn't let some cloud coverage dampen the adventures from being purely awesome. The kids ascending a snow field next to the Raven glacier before we glissaded down.

Since the start of the summer break, I've gotten the opportunity to know and work with the "Junior B" team. Coaching juniors has to be one of the most rewarding and satisfying jobs out there, and I can't say that there's any other way I'd rather be spending my time this summer.
A coach "sandwich" with Holly, Amelia, Celia, MacKenzie, Alex, Tsaina, and myself.

Our camp culminated with the Bird Ridge mountain running race where we raced from sea level to 3,400ft in just 3 miles. We all had solid performances and most of us had personal record times. Strabel and Holly took top honors and the junior girls were just shy of their team average time goal they needed to meet in order to be able to shave coach Strabel's mustache. Strabel watch out, they'll get it soon enough! Here's the view from half way up Bird Ridge, when we previewed the mountain early in the month. In addition to this view imagine seeing energetic young kids bound up the mountain, and a top-down view of a bore tide coming into Turagain Arm. We finished it all off by playing in the mud, and washing off with an ice bath in a freezing cold river. Yeah, summer is SWEET.

In addition to being fun, coaching is gratifying knowing that I get to spend my efforts engaging others in activities that promote health, fitness, and happiness. I still look back at my adolescence and feel indebted to the junior coaches I had growing up-- so spending at least a little time "giving back" is the least I can do. My coaches and mentors helped get me hooked on a sport that has provided me with a free college education, tools so that I have the freedom to exlpore and enjoy the Alaskan outdoors, sustain lifelong fitness, etc.. Here I am as a junior (along with the group), loving exploring new places on a a weekly Winter Stars hike usually lead by Jan Buron and Ben Arians.

My favorite workout of the Junior death camp was helping take the kids for a hike/ski adventure to ski at Crow Pass. Most of the kids had never strapped skis to backpacks and hiked up to snow. Hopefully this will be the first trip of many each of them!
The junior team (with Eric Strabel, Holly Brooks, Charlie Renfro, and I) ready for a 6hr adventure style over-distance workout.

I am making it more of a priority to include some adventure style training of my own when I can-- because those are the days that keep me going and I can't LIVE without.

I have a lot more learn about crevasse rescue before I am assured I have the tools and skills needed to be self-sufficient and safe when creating my own trips over glaciers in the backcountry. Rob Whitney served as Bill, Holly and my "coach" for this particular Memorial Day weekend trip. Im looking forward to learning more in this area in the coming years! Rope it up!
Ronsse and Brooks. Two glacier girls playing air guitar above Prince William Sound-- Only In Alaska!!