It started out with some clear mornings and really wonderfully fast crust skiing, which is most of what I took pictures of.  After a tantalizing three days of that, the weather rolled in.  I have always heard the coaches talk about how windy it can be up there, and some of the siding was peeled off the building over the winter, but it had never gotten that bad during a ski camp.  The siding stayed on this week, but it was some of the strongest wind that I had ever been in.  Gusts definitely shook the building at night, but it would calm down during the day.  There is a cozy aspect to that kind of weather, as you can hear it outside and be warm and comfortable inside.

    We did a whole lot of technique work, and a ton of video.  The most interesting part of that, other than analyzing my movements, was watching how other people analyze them. Technique is kind of an ambiguous topic, and quite a few arguments stem from people approaching the same issue from different angles.  It reminds me a lot of the philosophy reading that I have recently become interested in: the meaning of a word has to be either intricately defined or somehow be the same for the two people talking.  Little differences in the interpretation of a term can get a topic totally turned around.  For example, if one person talks about hips being stuck high, another can look at the same movement and think that their butt is sticking out.  What they are both talking about is the lack of movement in the hips, but are approaching it from different ends, so to speak.  Some people look at it as a very simply physics situation, others a series of complex and dynamic movements.  In a way, a conversation about technique can end up being a comedy of errors: next time you hear one, try to see how many little miscommunications you can catch.  It’s kind of fun!

    Now it’s time to implement some of the pointers that I got, and settle in for a couple months of solid dry land training.  Hopefully Hatcher’s Pass gets snow early this year and we get to ski again soon!