My Hiatus (is over!)

Yes it is spring time and yes, I took a HUGE break from my blog - larger than ever before. I suppose that I needed a break from documenting my ski adventures.  In fact, I think that my great aunt called other members of my family to make sure I was still alive (she follows all of the family member's blogs religiously).

APU Girls team in Sun Valley... what else is there to say?

While I've been taking a break from my blog, I've only taken a little break from skiing & training.  Life has actually been busier than I ever thought possible since arriving home the second week of April.  Don't worry, I'm not complaining. I actually like having appointments, phones ringing & emails stacking up....   When you love what you do, it's easy to get up in the morning.

My time in Alaska has been split between work for APU, maintain some semblance of training, paperwork (taxes!) reuniting with friends that I haven't seen all winter, planning for the upcoming summer & season, housework..... the list goes on and on as I'm sure you can imagine.

Skiing with the APU devos and juniors is always a blast. Here I am with the girls! 

Perhaps the largest chunk of my time is going into organizing our second annual APU end of season celebration/fundraising auction on Tuesday May 10th.  All of the funds raised go directly towards offsetting training and travel expenses for the athletes. The event was a blast last year and super successful in helping to subsidize ever-climbing ski racing expenses. For example, this year it cost me $200 each way to fly my ski bags to Nationals in Rumford, Maine (yikes!)

There is no admission charge, we'll have free food and drinks and lots of AWESOME auction items.  Businesses in town have been WONDERFUL to us and their generosity is going to help keep us skiing and skiing fast.  The support of the community up here is just another reason why I love Alaska.  (I will post a list of auction items and donors shortly!)

But back to the actual skiing....

We had a beautiful stretch of weather mid-April and I did my best to take advantage of the high pressure system.  Alaska in the spring can be an AMAZING place and I have pictures to prove it:

Skiing Portage with Chrissy!

Chrissy May :) 

Looking at Portage Glacier and friends skiing in the distance

Looking over Passage Canal, Prince William Sound

Beautiful Alaskan Glacier Ice 

Me, Kikkan & Jeff + some Norwegian visitors

Lots of Alaskans were able to accomplish the "crust-corn" double this year.... crust ski in the morning and then corn ski in the afternoon either at Alyeska or BC. It's simply the best!

We also had some other adventures trying to ski Moose Pass to Whittier but the conditions shut us down. The low snow year didn't help... 

We did have one of the more gorgeous camp sites though!

Holly, Rob & Dylan 

Grant Lake in the background - a great place to ski if you've never done so

The end of the trip

Unstructured skiing has been a blast but here are a couple of key shots from the end of the races in Sun Valley.  Rick & the crew did an outstanding job of hosting Distance Nationals/Super Tour Finals this year - I know that everyone is hoping that they'll host again next year! 

The one and only Chandra "GaGa" Crawford!

My sister Robin was an awesome cheer leader - thanks Robs! 

APU casualities after the hill climb up Dollar Mountain! 

Here I am with flowers and pottery at the rainy awards ceremony!

Sun Valley also represented the end of the season and I skied to and held onto some decent awards, all of which were firsts for me! Those include Super Tour Overall Champion, Super Tour Distance/Sprint Champion & Grand National Champion (when all five US Championship races are combined) ... then I was able to secure second place in the overall mini-tour with a good hill climb on the last day.

..... that's it for now!  I'll be back to regular blogs, I promise!  Lots of fun exciting stuff coming up in the next couple of months!  As my friend Lori says, "Do what you love, love what you do!" 

~Holly :)