The Mirror staffer Sarah Bennett ’19 is a member of Northwood School’s Alpine Ski Team, and she kept this journal of her training camp.
The skiers left school at around noon for Boston’s Logan Airport with three vans and one truck. It took us around five and a half hours to get to Boston. Our first flight to Switzerland took seven hours. Our luggage stayed in Switzerland while we departed for Munich, Germany. We waited approximately two hours at the Munich airport to solve the luggage problem. The whole team left for Austria on the bus while Ms. Fagan and Coach Haggerty took one for the team and stayed behind to wait for our luggage. We arrived at the hotel at around 6:30pm local time and ate dinner at 7:00. The luggage finally arrived at 9:00pm
On the first day, breakfast was served at 7am, and we departed the hotel for the mountain on the bus at 7:47. Groups were separated by age, gender, and whether or not you trained over the summer in New Zealand or Austria. The skiers did some free skiing and some drills until noon, when they ate lunch. The cafeteria had some great food options, but it was filled with lots of people. We went back out at around 1pm and skied more runs. It was a great first day, but the number of runs was limited due to crowds of people at the mountain.
Day 2 recap (Told by Jojo R.’19)
Today was a great day of skiing, with clear skies and a perfect temperature. We had a 7:00am breakfast and left for the mountain at 7:47. We started skiing at around 8:30, and divided into groups based on age and gender. We did a combination of drills and free skiing, with the U16s on slalom skis and the U19s on GS skis. We ate lunch at the lodge before going down and gondola and catching the 2:00 and 2:15 shuttles. After this, we had a 20 minute dryland session followed by a two hour study hall. Then, we are an Austrian-style dinner. All in all, a great day in the Alps!
Day 3 as told by Chelsea Smith
We woke up and went for breakfast at the same time: 7 am. Today was the final day of freeskiing and drills before we hit the gates the next day. The coaches were moved around a bit, with Pat Purcell and Terry D with the FIS girls, Ikuo with the FIS guys, and Coach Haggerty and Alex Sherer with the U16 group. We freeskied without the coaches until 10:00 and met up with them to work on drills and technique until lunchtime. After lunch, we put all of our gear back on and skied until about 2 pm. We headed back down the gondola and got back to the hotel with about an hour of free time, used mostly for tuning, before a study hall session from 4 until 6. We ate dinner again at 6:30 and had a team meeting at 8 for our game plan the next day. It was time to train GS gates.
Day 4
Today was our first day of training. We left at our usual time of 7:47 and took a bus on our way to the mountain. We were all in GS skis and the U19 group started by skiing the course from around 9 and had lunch at 12 and came back out an hour later to train some more. During that time, the U16s were doing drills in the morning and came to join us in the course at around 10:30. We all came back and took a bus at 3:30, making it just in time for study hall from 4 to 6. We then had to tune our skis, eat dinner, have video and a team meeting concerning our next day schedule.
Day 5
Today was another day of GS training. The U19s started training at about the same time as the day before and stayed in the course until lunch. The U16s started off with some freeskiing and came to join us later. The course got into bad conditions which is why most of us decided to freeski in the afternoon. We came back at approximately 2pm and had study hall from 4 until 6. We then had dinner and our meetings, tuned our skis and went to bed.
Off day
Today was our off day. We started off with breakfast at 8:30 then had study hall from 9 until 11. Most of us stayed afterwards to do some more homework. It was a good day to catch up on school work. Some went into town for lunch while others went up on the gondola to eat at the mountain. Some of us went to see a waterfall which is situated next to the mountain.
Day 6
Today was a day of slalom and gs. The u19s took the bus at the normal time of 7:47 while the U16 group got to sleep in and take the 8:59 bus. All were in GS equipment except for the U19 girls who were in slalom. All u19s were training from 8:30 until about noon and came back to the hotel at around 2. The u16 on the other hand were freeskiing from around 10:30 until 11:30 then had a lunch break, trained in the afternoon and came back just in time for study hall.
Day 7
It was another day of U16s sleeping in while the U19 group left bright and early for a good slalom session. The U19s trained slalom until about noon and could not really train much in the afternoon due to bad surface conditions. The U16s freeskied in the morning, had lunch, then came back out for an afternoon slalom session on a different trail. U19s made it at the hotel earlier, but all were back in time for study hall.
Day 8 as told by Hugh Dempsey
Today we had breakfast at 7:00 and the bus came to pick us all up at 7:47. When we left our hotel it was raining but when we arrived to the mountain it was snowing slightly. We then took the gondola up to the glacier where the visibility was very poor and it was snowing much harder. We put on our equipment at the top of the gondola and then we trained slalom from 9:30 to about 11:45. After training, some of us went down the gondola while others stayed to have lunch at the mountain. Everyone was back at the hotel by 1:30. For the rest of the day we tuned our skis, did homework in our rooms, had dinner at the hotel, and then went to bed.
Day 9
Everyone was ready to go to the mountain and ski while waiting for the bus at 7:47. The U19s had their GS equipment while the U16s had their slalom equipment. The coaches were waiting for us at the top of the gondola to tell us that we might not be training today. It was dumping snow, the wind was strong and the visibility was very bad. All of us still decided to go out and freeski. We all came back in after a couple runs due to the horrible conditions. We came back at different times but before 2 to be able to do a workout to compensate for our day on snow lost. We then had study hall from 5 to 6, had dinner, our meeting and video times.
