California Dreaming

NYSEF alpine athletes from Whiteface, Gore, and Belleayre headed West for some dreamy summer skiing at Mammoth Mountain

From

NYSEF Belleayre U10/U12 Coach Kate McKenna:

Our NYSEF Athletes were California Dreaming for this summer ' s U12/U14 on-snow camp, getting an awesome taste of summer Sierra skiing! Bringing athletes from all of our NYSEF venues, our team took advantage of the incredible second-season conditions being offered at Mammoth Mountain.

Athletes stayed at the luxurious mountainside Juniper Springs Condos and spent their mornings getting ready in the Main Lodge before hitting the first chair at 07:30 to head up onto the pristine conditions For many of our athletes, this was their first visit to Mammoth, to which we made sure to ski all the open and available terrain!

Our athletes got their ski legs back quickly off the summit for the first few days of camp, focusing on their body awareness and positioning, adjusting to the altitude, and gaining confidence in their skills on the steeper terrain. The team moved into a slalom training block and worked heavily on their timing; moving from arc to arc with power and flow. From our slalom block, we moved up to the famous Hare Jump to train GS at a higher elevation and continue working on applying our free ski fundamentals to our work in the environments!

On our final day of training we got to send it off all the open and available terrain, hitting all the open bowls, chutes, snakes, and bumps; showing our growth and comfortability from a solid 10 days of quality training!

While on the mountain our athletes had the chance to watch a variety of different athletes from around the world training on the same surface as them! The US Ski Team Men's C and D Teams, Vancouver Canada Provincial Team, Sugarbowl

Academy FIS Team, Gould U14 Alpine Team, Cardigan Mountain School U14 Team, and many more clubs took advantage of the non-existent lift lines, favorable conditions, and world-class work by the Mammoth Race Department.

When off the snow, athletes had the opportunity to spend some free time exploring the village getting souvenirs, rock climbing the famous Owens River Gorge with the legendary rock-climbing master himself - Coach Pat, workouts led by Coach Kate, tuning clinics led by Coach Kyle, video review with Coach Jimbo and 30 minutes of free swim a day! Daily team dinners by Chef Jimbo kept the team fueled and energized for the duration of the camp, as well as a BBQ hosted by our adventurous parents, and a field trip for world-famous fish tacos in Mono Lake!

Overall our athletes had a great time both on and off the snow, and everyone came home even more excited about the season to come. We hope that Mammoth Mountain meets their year-round goal, and that they have just as much snow so we can head back next year!