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Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Summer Training Begins!

View of Bend from Pilot Butte

A few days after school ended, Chris Stock (Harvard) and I headed off to Bend Oregon to do some late spring skiing and relax from exams.  We've been staying with Susan, Bob, and Casey Shannon, who have been absolutely fabulous hosts, and among many other things, great mushroom hunters.  Also  our trip has coincided almost perfectly with the US and Canadian ski teams' spring training camps so we've been bumping into such skiing celebrities as Kikkan Randall, Devon Kershaw, and even Will Wichirski.

 Either Mt. Bachelor or one of the Three Sisters

Looking towards the Newbury Calderra (its active)

The weather and conditions have been different every day.  Today it was 35 degrees, raining, and very windy, but we've also had sun, snow, and everything in between.  
 For the geology nerds among you, many of the mountains out here are volcanoes, and from my understanding the smaller ones are lava/cinder cones from previous eruptions.

                                                Heading off in the rain.  Chris is pumped!

 We went camping yesterday in Ochoco National Forest.  It was pouring rain when we drove into the parking lot and when we were cooking dinner, but otherwise we stayed dry.  On our hike we spotted some elk (or maybe mule deer) lots of hawks, a burned down forest, and two enormous rock pillar formations.  Unfortunately we didn't have the camera with us to take pictures.
Cooking tofu peanut rice curry in the rain.
email me if you want the recipe.

Till next time.  We'll try to get some pictures of actual skiing, and maybe some autographs for Vanya's collection.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Spring BBQ and Awards

The last day of finals was almost a week ago and things on campus are starting to wind down with the exception of graduation, which is one week from today! During reading period the ski team had our annual spring BBQ and awards ceremony. It was a bit frigid behind Poker Flats that evening.....downright cold considering the warm weather we were all getting used to, but we had a great time catching up with each other before heading out for a wide variety of summer adventures!!  Congratulations to Casey, Ian, Phil and Christina for a great 4 years on the Williams Ski Team. You will all be greatly missed and we wish you the best of luck in whatever the future brings your way! Here are a few pictures from the evening:

Coach Fisher assessing Phil's time at Williams






Coach Fisher with an animated speech about Christina








Ian taking it with a grain of salt!



Casey and Bud



The Ski Team





Christina reciting a clever poem for the coaches

The Alpine Seniors and Coach Levine





Bud explaining the Ski Awards




Casey Jones receiving the Ralph J. Townsend Award
Geordie Lonza receiving the Women's Alumnae Ski Award