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What a difference a year makes. We went from hiking up the alpine trails and skiing down them in the pitch black, to skiing on freshly groomed trails. No dodging snowboarders this year! This year, I rode with Mr. Cooper, Dan, JC, Greta and Ian. The ride was fun other than the smell from JC’s barbecued corn nuts. The only one that didn’t mind them was Ian because he was sleeping.
As soon as we arrived, we parked then ate. The brunch was good. We had stuff like French toast, bacon, pancakes, home fries and scrambled eggs. Then we got back in the van and changed at the XC center. We skied for 2 hours working on skating technique. We took a short break and skied for another hour and a half. Kristen, Julia, Tiffany, Corrine, Cecily and I skied with Alexei and Kate Newick.
Kate is a former GNA member who has been in Italy for the last few months. She helped us with technique and drills. A lot of the drills that they did in Italy she had already learned from Alexei.
We finished skiing the 5K loop which had a really hard uphill with no flat breaks in between. But after reaching the top of the hill, there was a nice downhill that seemed like it lasted for a really long time.
When skiing was finally over with, we got to the condos. I roomed with Kristen (who I roomed with last year), Corrine, Cecily and Emily. After unpacking, we took the Vermont Academy bus to dinner. There was a large screen TV and Alexei showed us filmage of us skiing earlier in the day. He critiqued our early season skiing and it was hilarious! He kept rewinding and playing not so flattering moments, but we all had a good laugh!
Saturday 6:40 AM, Alexei called to say the bus would be arriving shortly before breakfast. Fortunately, the bus was late and Cecily had time to dry her hair. After breakfast, we had 2 hours of classical skiing and played "sharks and minnows". Dan broke his pole and we all ran out of kick wax. After an afternoon skating session, we got to go to the pool and the outdoor hot tubs! It was awesome because we got to roll around in the snow and have snowball fights! We crammed 11 people in the 4 person hot tub though it was short-lived. Alexei kicked us out and we had to take refuge in the inside hot tubs (which were a lot hotter).
We were exhausted that night. We played Jeopardy, watched a little Food Network and went to bed. Sunday morning came fast. Kristen answered Alexei’s wake-up call with a comatose voice and it was off again for another day of skiing. We did more skating technique work. Andrew was accidentally impaled during the group work but he survived. After skiing, we had lunch and chocolate at the XC center.
The relays were after lunch. It was skating technique made up of mixed teams of 3. The relays were fun, nice and short, about 2K. On my team was Dan and Laura.
The ride home was uneventful, pretty quiet, everyone was tired. Next year let’s hope for even more snow and more pool time! Thanks Alexei and Mr. Cooper for another successful Sugarloaf camp!

Friday November 23 at 5:30 am, Alexei, Victoria, Pavel, Kressley, Katrina, Joe, Grayson, Alex, Ian, Marshall and I left for Sugarloaf, Maine. The ride was five hours long, including many stops at gas stations along the way. On the ride up we played the "alphabet game", and it took three hours to find the letter Q (Alex spotted that one). Once we arrived we met up with the rest, Dan, J.C., Greta, Winthrop, Irene, Heidi, Kristen, Greg, Ben, Nicole, Heather, Ann and Dan's dad Ed. We checked into the condos which were awesome, then we played Frisbee and did stretching for an hour. After we loosened up we were ready to ski. Unfortunately the cross country trails were not open due to lack of snow. So instead, we hiked up the alpine trial, which was very, very steep. At the top, we had to dodge the snowboarders and skiers while trying to ski loops. Fortunately no one was injured in the process. After skiing, we went to the pool and out-door Jacuzzi. I have been in hot tubs before, but nothing compared to this.

On Saturday, we did intensive skiing, and we were filmed. We also went to a waxing clinic and learned EVERYTHING there is to possibly know about waxing skis. That night everyone piled into the girls condo to watch the movie of us skiing, as well as the trip to Finland that Katrina, Winthrop and Pavel went on last summer. We watched Alexei's friend Vladimir ski and do some funny poses.

On Sunday I had a most difficult time getting out of bed (too much fresh air!!!). There were socks all over the girls condo, most belonging to Greta. We ate and climbed back up the hill for some relays. My team consisted of Alex , Grayson, and me. The relays were fun, beside the fact that ropes were put up at the chair lift. Joe did a great job skiing over the rope and not falling. After skiing down the hill, we went back to the condo to pack and watched the National Clogging Champs on TV. Very exciting... we should add that to GNA workouts! The last thing we did before leaving was cram all of our bags into the van and play soccer. Alex drank two cappuccinos before we left, the caffeine kicked in 15 minutes later on the ride home.