Back again, we are now in Valle Nevado, a 30-40 min car ride or a 10 second hike from the top of one mountain to the other.  We arrived two days ago in Valle Nevado, the weather is great and the conditions are great on the runs but to get to the run can become quite tricky depending on what part of the mountain we are on.  Our GS block is now over and we have started a 5 day SL block here in Valle with one last day of GS on our last day. 

View from our room in the hotel

Day 1 of SL we were in full gate SL courses but for small sections one of which was quite off set but 13-14m and the other was more of a normal SL course we would tend to see.  Day 2, so today we were on a run called Fox Trot its a gradual pitch at the top and than a long flat with two decent rollers half way down.

Fox Trot is the run straight ahead to the left of the run on the right

On our first day of skiing in Valle we were on the hill loading the chairs at just before or at 7am... the sun wasn't even up yet.  We ski probably an hour to and hour and a half more here than we did in El Colorado and can get alot of runs in, in the day because of such a fast turn around.  Today the team did about 900SL gates give or take a few.   I unfortunately could not get that many runs in for a mixture of reasons, one being the soreness of my feet from the bone spurs pushing up against the shell but the foremost reason is once again my hip.  Yesterday on the second last run of the day I caught my tip on a SL gate and twisted my hip which brought it to and past the range of motion where the pain begins.  It has been sore all yesterday and all today as well, lots of ice and stretching will hopefully help bring down the pain in it so I can ski more runs tomorrow. Today I think I got in about 5 or 6 runs in the course before the last run I did jerked my hip into an uncomfortable position and had to call it a day.   On the bright side I got to tan a little bit while sitting on my balcony watching everyone else ski while icing my hip.

Skiing at 7am

Icing the hip while watching the team ski

One of the best things about Valle Nevado is the nightly sun sets!! even though they are all the same view, which is coming out over El colorado its some of the best sun sets I've ever seen. 

Sun set over El Colorado from Valle Nevado

Sun Rise looking over the mountain

Sun Set View from the common area

Sun Rise over El Colorado

Tomorrow we are back on Fox Trot with nice and sharp skis, as needed, and looking to get as many runs or more tomorrow.  The snow here in Valle is very very slick and our skis dull very easily if we don't bring a diamond stone, file guide and file on the hill with us every day. 

Warming up while the sun is getting up

There really isn't much else to talk about for now besides the skiing and taking care of injurys there isn't really anything to do here.

Until next time.

Watching the team ski from the balcony

Last minute changes

Hello from El Colorado Chile!  I am currently in Chile for a 2 week training camp 1 week in El Colorado and 1 week in Valle Nevado.  The weather has been great for the last week, minus one day.  We have now been on snow for 4 days, or 17 days total this season if we include the trip to Mt. Hood, Oregon.

 

Early morning on day 3 of the camp

For the most part this camp has been building off of what we did in Mt. Hood, except at a much faster pace and in some actual 26m plus GS courses.  Feels great!  Our first day on snow was mostly just shaking off jet lag and getting back into the grove of ski racing.  After a couple runs and a bit of exploring the mountain we started doing some drills. Our first day was also one of the coldest days we've had this camp, needless to say my feet where not ready for the temperature and froze, literally.

Tuning room or tuning spot rather

We have discovered that my feet have terrible circulation and my toes need a lot of space so that they don't freeze more on that in a bit!

The new boots

Day two was a little more interesting than day one, in three words I can explain it as a total white out.  We woke up at 6:30am and were on the transport at 7:30 we arrived at the mountain to be told that it is not letting anyone up because you cant see more than 5m ahead.   So, what else to do in ski racing than wait it out inside the lodge playing games and cards.  Joey, our coach bit the bullet and went up to see what was going on. with a radio in his hand and a radio in our hand we awaited news on the conditions.  1 hour later he had reached the top of the mountain where we were supposed to train, the ride up takes about 30min tops, not looking to good.  Report back from Joey was well cant see much i'd say its a 80% chance we will not ski today.  Two and a half hours into Joey's expedition we decided to radio him to find out where he was, as we asked him he emerged out of the fog.   That was all the skiing that was done for that day.

Cant see much out the window and up the hill...

Days 3 threw 5, where fairly straight forward minus a few changes to the plans that were unexpected unwanted, day three and four we skied 24-26 gate GS and than today about 35 plus gate GS course in the back right beside Valle Nevado, we could literally take 10 steps and be in Valle Nevado.


At the end of day 4 my two big toes where completly frozen one was purple and the other the toe nail was starting to fall off,  it was time to make some adjustments and fix this probelm, I did not want to loose a toe or two for that matter.  Back at the house me and Joey went threw all our possibility's and decided that the best and easiest way was to shave down the foot board in the bottom of the boot we took of about 3mm and boy did it make a difference, you wouldn't think so but my toes felt 100000000x better today with that small adjustment. We are going to keep a close eye on my toes for the rest of the camp but I think they will be alright from here on out!

Not alot of space in there

Solution, I think so!

The BIG difference

Now to get to the title and what I mentioned in that last paragraph all these last minute changes.   To start off our camp was supposed to be 3 weeks long we only found out 2 days prior to leaving that we would loose a week and only be here for 2, that's a lose of 7 days, its fair to say the team and myself where not to excited about the lose of an entire week of skiing,  the next thing that changed on us was day 2, the weather, yes I know we cant control the weather, but because of it we lost another day of skiing so we are now totaled at 8 less days of skiing and because of the weather we sacrificed our day off for the second day and will now ski the rest of the camp no breaks, as long as the weather permits.  Than Day 3 our transport who is to arrive at 7:30 arrived about 7:45 7:50 and than as we got into the transport the truck would not start... try after try the truck would not start... so we wait yet again new transport truck arrives around 8:05 and we rush up to the hill.  Now for the next thing that has changed on us without notice or planned for was the closing of the front side of the mountain. meaning the chair lifts and t-bars we take up in the morning all closed... new way to get up the mountain, a convoy of around 10 pick up trucks to transport our team the French woman's B team and Chileans up dirt roads that are barely 1 car wide all the way up to the back of the mountain.  It's a little scary but its really fun at the same time to be in a truck on the edge of a mountain drifting all over the place cause its all mud or snow. 

Nice sun rise as we drive up the mountain

Decent down partly in snow

Decent down the mountain partly in mud

That's basically the most interesting parts of our camp so far, more to come as we ski more, I'm sure more plans will change, just a hunch tho!

Enjoy the view!