Snow Training, January 15th Report

Not quite The Lecht today but we still managed a quality snow training!

Well what a day to kick off the Gordon Skiers Sunday Snow Training Season.

It is never an easy decision to make as to whether or not the conditions are going to hold overnight and therefore if we can run training or not – I still stand by the decision that today was worthwhile training (despite getting wet).

The snow had taken some attacking overnight from the good conditions on Saturday and at 9am it was starting to look a little bit browner and softer.

Definitely hats off to the team at The Lecht who did a great job to get 4 of the main runs open today despite the worsening conditions.

Today saw 45 trainees training with 6 coaches- an amazing achievement to have such a large number of kids training. Well done to you all and a special congratulations to all those that persevered till 3.15pm when the coaches decided they couldn’t make you suffer anymore. Despite the slightly soft conditions there was improvements in everyone’s skiing today. As they say ‘if you can ski in Scotland you can ski anywhere’ – a very fitting comment for today.

It was quite amazing watching the snow slowly retract from the fences and the length of the runs decrease every run we did.

This morning saw all groups getting back ‘their ski legs’ as for some folk it was their first day on snow since last season and for others it’s their first day back on skis. Alex decided it wasn’t tricky enough for the Performance 1 folk and decided to make them ski on snow blades for a couple of runs.

Lunch and a chance to dry off some kit was very much welcomed by all at 12. We headed back out at 1-1.15 with the younger groups continuing their work on the Grouse while the Performance Squads and Development 1 made the small hike across to the Eagle where we set some stubbies in the slush.

An all-round good weekend despite the conditions and I believe we are the only Scottish race club to have had two days training on snow this weekend plus manage to set 30 gate stubby slalom.

Some may say I am stupid or some may say I am well organised/make good calls- maybe a bit of both? (Up to your own judgment).

Various posts to follow in coming days regards Gordon Skiers Open plans, Wednesday night training sessions and potential plans for next weekend.

Hope you are all slowly drying out and doing your snow dances.

Regards

James