Stateside

After 13+ hours of travel, 4 bags of milk, 2 turkeys, and many quality hours of training and skiing, we have concluded our Thanksgiving Camp in Quebec. An excellent camp it was too - many thanks to Chris and Sara for putting together a great week of training and fun, as well as putting up with shenanigans and a certain genre of music that our generation seems to enthusiastically appreciate. We were able to ski every day - and Saturday morning we were greeted with a couple of inches of snow. By Saturday afternoon, our patriotic souls were growing nostalgic for the stars and stripes so we decided to depart early Sunday to get in some good skiing at Bretton Woods, NH, which we heard had received a good amount of snowfall. This was one of my favorite days of the trip, not just because we were back in the good 'ol U.S. of A. but because it felt great to get in some classic skiing in an awesome New England Landscape. We skied around and worked on Technique in the shadows of the looming Presidential Range for a good two hours. It felt like a textbook New England Winter Day - sun, snow and great skiing tracks made for an excellent cap to our week of training. Now we need to do some serious snow dancing. Let's hope it gets cold here in Cambridge.


Turkey number 1

Ladies

Men

We know what song this is from...

Team Shot courtesy of Rob Bradlee

Quebec Raiders (By the way everything in Quebec City closes before 6 P.M. on a Saturday Night)

Tony what happened to your binding?

Nordic Pterodactyls

Quebec Ski Camp: Unintentional Video Documentation by Coach Sara

Yesterday afternoon we all piled into two vans back in Cambridge, filled the back with lots of thanksgiving food and such (side note: the U.S.S Party Van is obviously the superior van of the two. We have... a. Spice Girls, b. Whatcha say... and best of all c. Lady Gaga). Everyone got some much-needed sleep on the way up and Tor somehow managed to sleep the entire drive, except when we stopped for pizza (of course). Today we got on snow for the first time all year! It was amazing! The loop we're skiing on is pretty short, but snow nonetheless, and everybody had a great day with two long skis+lunch+some other technique and stuff. Here's some clips from the day, taken by sarah, who was decieved by my camera into thinking she was taking photos. We ended up with approximately 50 random videos from the viewpoint of sara getting chased by sharks. Here's a sampling:
First try at a Dave McCahill pose group shot (many more videos of this):
(also: Note kevin's tuck)

Played an awesome game of sharks and minnows (or Clare's more appropriate title: seals and polar bears):

Esther and I collided. Her effective tactic was to squish me into a fast-moving Audrey.

And Anika was the most skilled minnow of the bunch, she managed to make it to the final two twice and win once before we all decided to gang up on her, but she still evaded us somehow. I was impressed.

(note the impending crash at the end of this video)
some real photos coming soon,
Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow!!!
alena

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS!!!!!!
One day there were a lot of : (leaves) in New England instead of: (snow), so the Harvard Nordic team decided to participate in the World Championship Ski Erg!! The awesome (coaches) procured a spiffy ski erg. And the skiers suffered many kinds of exciting ski erg deaths :-). Like : (Kevin) beating the NH coach. And: (Claire) zipping around the world championship course. The Alaskan: (Esther) and the coldplay fan: (Audrey) [sorry everyone else who raced while I wasn't there] also double poled in the World Championships. Cheerio!