Training hill at Copper Colorado. Photo provided.
Beginning November 10, almost the entire Northwood alpine ski team will be departing for Copper Mountain Colorado (U18s) and Saas Fee, Switzerland (U16s). Just like earlier this year in Valle Nevado, Chile, the skiers will be working on fundamental training skills in slalom and giant slalom courses.
All the Copper-bound athletes will be staying in separate houses 10 minutes away via a bus that will take them to the mountain. Copper is a popular venue for early season training, so most days, athletes will have allotted lane times as early as 5 a.m., starting and ending the ski day extremely early to make time for other activities and schoolwork later. On some other days, however, the skiers may have lanes as late as 1:00 p.m., which completely flips their schedules. In contrast, to get up to the Saas-Fee glacier, athletes must walk to a tram that loads early in the morning at 7:00 a.m. to get to the top if there isn’t any snow leading all the way to the town.
Both venues are extremely popular for national and school ski teams to get as much practice as possible before the race season officially begins. This being the case, short timed allotted lanes are constantly full, forcing teams to take any chance they can on snow. However, the crowds and start of the busy season are worth the wait, considering the prime conditions that Saas Fee and Western skiing at Copper provides.
Anja Robertson ’26 has been to Copper on multiple occasions. “The snow is absolutely amazing and the weather is always so good.” Hopefully during these upcoming camps everything runs smoothly, and the athletes make successful developments in their skiing!
