After a long cloudy day, the sun came out and the kids started jumping off the mini-mountain of manmade snow at the Craftsbury, VT, Outdoor Center last weekend. The guy on the bottom started out facing the other direction and in this series is en route to a 360.
Category Archives: Winter
Super Tour Finals at Craftsbury
The 2018 Super Tour finals brought nordic skiers from across the country to the Craftsbury, VT, Outdoor Center for five days of racing last week. Panning (moving the camera with the action while it is set at a slow shutter speed) is often a matter of luck, and I lucked out on the above photo of the lead pack in the men’s 50-k freestyle race starting down a gradual hill. Below, the 50-K start, a skier at the finish, and young racers in the club relay held after the Super Tour relay. Bottom, America’s Olympic cross country ski medalists: left and right, Kikkan Randall and Jessie Diggins (gold, PyeongChang, 2018); center, Bill Koch (silver, Seefeld, 1976). Click here for a gallery of all the events. Use the right arrow to speed up viewing.
It’s Still Winter in Quebec
No matter what it’s doing where you are, it’s still winter at Mont Sainte Anne in Quebec, just down the Fleuve St. Laurent from Quebec City. Four feet of snow on the ground in the last week of February. Velo d’hiver riders (below) and skiers taking advantage of the situation while they can. Hydro Quebec electric lines humming loudly in the falling snow. For more, click here for a gallery.
Also posted in cross-country skiing, Quebec, Snow
Cross Country Skier Cover
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US cross country ski team member Jessie Diggins (Afton, Minnesota) leads up the hill above the stadium in Lahti, Finland, in a photo I took at last year’s World Nordic Ski Championships. It’s the cover of the newest issue of Cross Country Skier magazine. Diggins won her first World Cup race of the year today and will be headed to PyeongChang, South Korea, in a few weeks for the Winter Olympics. Click here for info on the magazine and, if you’re a skier, subscribe!
Also posted in cross country ski racing
Tagged FIS cross country skiing World Cup, Jessie Diggins, women in ski sport
Craftsbury SuperTour
Kaitlynn Miller (Elmore, VT) and Kelsey Phinney (Sun Valley, Idaho) hug after Miller won the SuperTour sprint race in Craftsbury, VT, Friday. Earlier in the week, Miller was named to the US Olympic team along with six other cross-country or biathlon skiers from the Craftsbury Green Racing Project. Below, the sartorial splendor of Jack Schrupp of the Williams College Purple Cows; Forrest Mahlen (Alaska Pacific University), the winner of the men’s race; and Miller, all in the sprint qualifier.
Also posted in cross country ski racing, Vermont
Tagged Craftsbury Outdoor Center, Kaitlynn Miller, Kelsey Phinney, US Olympic Ski Team
First Snow
It snowed. And we have more color in living black and white.
Lahti #10: Favorites
Favorites from today in Lahti: East Montpelier, VT’s, Liz Stephen, above, charging up the big hills as part of the US women’s 4-by 5-k relay team. Liz hammered the hills to help bring the team to within about 30 seconds of a bronze medal. Other favorites, below: Norway’s Marit Bjorgen waving the flag (again) after Norway won the relay; the Swedish relay team, on camera for the ski press after finishing second; the Canadian team, looking wholesomely Canadian after finishing tenth in a field of sixteen; and Sadie Bjornsen leading the US skiers out of the finish area. Click here for details at FasterSkier.com.
Also posted in 2017 Lahti World Championships, cross country ski racing, Finland
Lahti #7a
One from yesterday: Norway’s Marit Bjorgen, en route to her 16th World Championship medal, first place in the 10-K interval start at Lahti. For details and more photos click here.
Also posted in 2017 Lahti World Championships, cross country ski racing, Finland
Eastern Cup #1
The New England Nordic Ski Association held its first Eastern Cup of the 2016-17 season at Craftsbury Outdoor Center Saturday and Sunday. Hundreds of skiers from New England and eastern Canada raced, in heavy snow on Saturday, rain and freezing rain on Sunday. If you want to see more, click here for a gallery. (If the gallery slideshow is too slow for you, click on the right arrow to speed things up.)
Also posted in Craftsbury Outdoor Center, cross country ski racing, Snow, Vermont
World Cup at Killington
Mikaela Shiffrin celebrates her slalom win Sunday.
When bringing a weekend of women’s World Cup alpine ski racing from Europe to Killington, VT, was proposed, Eastern skiers all but guaranteed that they’d show up to cheer, and Killington guaranteed snow to race on. After all it would be the first women’s World Cup race in Vermont for 38 years. They all delivered Saturday and Sunday, when crowds estimated at up to 15,000 flooded the base of Killington’s Superstar trail. American Mikaela Shiffrin, who learned ski racing at Vermont’s Burke Mountain Academy, also delivered, by winning Sunday’s slalom. Spectators included her 95-year-old grandmother. Stories here, and here. And here.
