Craftsbury Camp Recap/Back In Williamstown

The team made it back to Williamstown all in one piece last night.  Craftsbury camp was a huge success, and a whole lot of fun!  In the five days that we were in northern Vermont, I estimate that we skied a total of 14 to 17 hours.  Two sessions a day, classic in the morning, skate in the afternoon, and accompanied with a decent snow storm Wednesday night, we were able to get in some spectacular skiing.  It felt like mid-winter for most of the week.  We only had one day of klister skiing; the other three days we were on hard wax.  The skate skiing was even better, as Craftsbury was able to roll out many of their outer trails for some rock-ski adventures.

The new Activity Center and lodge at Craftsbury was impressive.  We mostly spent time in the wax room, which is just below the Activity Center.  However, we did scope out the facilities and test out some of the new SkiErgs.  Right next to the Activity Center is a huge lodge with a ski rental shop and cafe.  This was also the location of our Thanksgiving feast.  Speaking of which, the food at Craftsbury was delicious (as always)!  The majority of what we ate was local and organic.  Needless to say, we ate healthily, and we ate a lot.  A couple of the guys put down two+ plates of food and several desserts at our Thanksgiving feast.

It was great having Harvard and UNH at Craftsbury as everyone was able to reconnect with old friends and ski around with each other.  It also provided some steep competition for Sunday's race.  With that being said, yesterday's 10k skate races were really exciting, and I couldn't be more proud of our team for giving it a good effort after a long week of training.  The men went off first at 9:30.  Jordan and Will took fourth and fifth place, respectively.  Only two seconds separated the two, and they were 17 and 19 seconds out of the win.  A few "safety school" kids took first through third.  Eli was 13th, Vanya 16th, Luke 18th, Ben 25th, and Josh 27th.  The women followed the men at 10:30.  Hannah Benson and Hannah Cole were 4th and 8th respectively.  They were 49 seconds and 1:21 out of the win.  Sarah Abramson followed up with 12th, Jenna 14th, Rebecca 17th, Tsaina 19th, Sarah Becker 21st, and Olivia was 24th.

Jordan cruising to 4th place.

Will skied with a solid group of guys to take 5th.

Benson hammers to 4th place.

Hannah Cole powered through to 8th.

This past week was so much fun!  Too bad all of the snow in Williamstown is now gone.  It would have been pretty awesome to come back to some snow to ski on.  The team has one more week of classes, followed by final exams, so they're working hard on finishing strong for the end of the semester.  Hopefully we get snow soon!

Rock the cow!

Perry