The Final Days of Camp

While Oliver said a full post about camp is coming soon, I thought I might help him out with a summary of the final days of camp after he, Meri, Tannis, Cara, Anne, and Chris left.

A quick prefatory note: unfortunately, I don't have any pictures so please someone (Anna, Trevor, Audrey) post some and please add details, stories, or whatever you like to this account.

So, with the departure of half the group on Sunday, only Coach Graves, Trevor, Audrey, Anna, and myself remained. The house seemed really quiet.

Sunday afternoon Trevor and I went for a run right outside his grandparent's house in the Arapahoe National Forest. It was on the run where I believe we had the only casualty of the trip as Trevor lost a glove to the wilderness. After, Trevor showed me his strength circuit from his Boulder days.

Later in the afternoon, all four of us, went back up to Devil's Thumb property up the road owned by Denver's Water Authority and climbed up to a great overlook. Trevor promised a great view and delivered with perhaps the best scenery of the trip. We took some great photographs and then headed on down after about a 90 minute classic ski.

That night we had late night sledding races under what was nearly a full moon. Trevor initially dominated, showing his home course knowledge, but then, after a fierce tie-up between Trevor and the blue sled of domination (Anna and myself) Audrey cruised to victory. Finally, Anna and I got it together for our first victory. Then, switching rides, Trevor and Audrey won, but in the final race, thanks to Anna's skillful maneuvering, I managed to pull off a victory that nearly sent me into the creek.

The next day we got out again to ski at Snow Mountain Ranch and classic skied up and down the mountain with a little technique work at the top. The higher we went the more it was snowing which was great after so many days of the same snow being slowly evaporated away. Ollie should note that "Harvard Nordic" was still visible at the top as was a very successful fox. All in all it was a 2 hour + ski.

DU was still there having a great time. Anna asked them why they weren't back in school on Monday and we found out that they don't have school until AFTER New Years! When asked why we weren't in school on Monday, Anna quickly responded, "we don't care so much about academics."

We soon disproved that statement by taking the afternoon off to go to the Frazer valley community library and working on all the school work we need to catch up on.

That night was again great as we were able to make another superb dinner and we celebrated my birthday with a cake Trevor made. I really appreciated the card Peter picked up AND, I love my new Gunde hat that Anna and Ollie were so kind to get me. That will certainly be making appearances at races. So the birthday went well - thanks.

Tuesday, we had our final ski. We skated up part of the way at Snow Mountain Ranch and then practiced our uphills and downhills and simply skied around. Trevor laid down some sweet tele turns, while Anna, Audrey, and I fumbled around after him slowly getting it. After the ski it was a quick turnaround. We went back to the house where we cleaned up quite well and then headed out to DIA. It should be noted that cleaning up included cleaning up the food with Anna sitting down by herself wrecking into an enormous bag of spinach.

Flight home was quick and painless and productive. We got home before 1am.

We got to stay a whole week, but I already miss it. I went running by myself around Cambridge tonight (usually I can count on McCahill to come too) and the difference really set in. As Flight of the Conchords might say: "Inner. Inner city. Inner, city, pressure."

I can't fight this feeling anymore,

I want snow.

-Anders

Overheard one night - "My ears are on fire!" - Anna. Trevor's Response: "I think we may very well need a quote book for the ski team." Something to think about.