How would you feel if for one day you were an alpine skier traveling the world in the chase of snow? Some people would say it’s idiotic to travel so far just to ski, but there is a lot they don’t know about an alpine skier. When the Northwood ski team travels to camps like Chile or Colorado, the misconception is that they are just fun vacations. Thus, this article will have spoilers of some untold stories and facts about ski training camps.
First, the team realized during their first ski trip was the number of bags, suitcases, ski bags and boot bags that we needed to travel with. I asked Cara Dempsey ‘25 what her ski bag was made of when she leaves for a trip like Colorado. Her ski bag includes two pairs of slalom skis, two pairs of giant slalom skis and four jackets because she gets cold easily. She added that one of the hardest parts of a camp is carrying all our bags to the airport.
Secondly, another fact that not everyone knows is that skiers need to wax and sharpen their skis every day after a ski session. When I asked Sydney Kuder ‘25 how she does her skis, she said that she always starts by passing the white stone on her base edge, followed by the black, red and yellow stones over her side edges. Knowing how to take care of our skis is one of the biggest factors for a good ski session because if our skis are not sharp enough, skiing on ice is almost impossible.
Following this, something that not a lot of people know about is our diets. Three times a day we need to prepare healthy and nutritious meals by ourselves. Cooking may not seem especially important, but fueling our body with healthy foods has a big advantage in terms of the levels of energy and recovery that we all need. I asked Elleanore Pelletier ‘25 what her go to meal is when she’s at ski camps: pasta with meat sauce and vegetables is her favorite meal, she cooks it a lot.
If ski camps teach us one thing, it must be autonomy and self-discipline. Skiers are all incredibly grateful to have the chance to travel to such cool places, but we would be lying if we hadn’t mentioned that at times it is particularly challenging.
