Chile Recap

I’m actually now on the plane back to America. Here is a little recap on the Chile camp. We were scheduled to ski 12 days on snow; skiing four days on, one day off, three times. The first two days were free skiing and a chance to get my skis back underneath me. We only skied one day of GS in Mt. Hood so it was nice to rip around GS skis, and the ripping was great. Each of the last couple years I have gone to Europe in the fall to train. This was my first time going to the Southern Hemisphere to ski. I was pretty impressed by Valle Nevado; in Europe you’ll find a glacier with 20 courses next to each other, there is usually little terrain and little opportunity to free ski. When I say you can free ski at Valle Nevado I mean there is plenty of open runs (not lanes) that are open for free skiing on great snow; but what was probably cooler was our opportunity to actually free ski after training. Valle Nevado is pretty big resort that is basically a gigantic snowfield with lots of terrain, random bits of the resort have groomed runs where most of the skiing is done. However I would say at least 75% of the mountain is ungroomed, and by about 12 o’clock that means there is plenty off-piste that is soft enough to rip on GS skis. It was great to just take laps of non-stop free skiing. Last season I dearly missed just going out and actually skiing. Between my knees bothering (especially in crud) and the orientation of my team I can rarely think of the times when I just went out to ski. I don’t think can describe the love I have for free skiing at places like Valle Nevado. Every bump, every piece of terrain keeps you on your feet and is something new. Besides the fun, (most important) and the obvious physical help that free skiing can do for you, it helps to keep you balanced and forces you to be in a strong position, I find that free skiing on inconsistent terrain can be invaluable in the course. When courses have a lot of terrain or especially when the weather is bad, the split second decision you have to make free skiing, to absorb or depending on your mood to pop a bump comes into play in the course. While I did see the point in the drill, I found it pretty funny that we practiced our “edge control” by sliding down the hills sideways then abruptly stopping, and repeating the process. In my opinion a balanced position and edge control is not learned by going 3 mph during a drill, but ripping GS turns through crud. As I mentioned before there is “more than one way to get to Rome.” There are some world cup racers who I’ve seen free ski, and it is nothing to write home about. Unfortunately they grew up skiing in the east, it was pretty amusing after training when the coaches told is that we free to free ski my buddy from Colorado and I immediately starting scoping lines in the off-trail and deciding where the best snow would be that time of day for shredding. Subconsciously I guess I assumed that everyone else was doing the same. After taking a few runs I realized that in fact no one else was skiing off-trail. Instead, most had either gone in or were making nice pretty GS turns down the groomed run. Don’t get me wrong I love skiing groomers I just found it odd when given the opportunity to do some pretty sick free skiing they opted to stay to the groomers. Every time I find myself in a situation like that I can’t thank god enough that a) I grew up in Alaska, and b) I was instilled with a gene for loving free skiing. I can remember as a 10-year old free skiing every weekend with one of my friends from when 3:30 after training until 5:30 when the mountain closed for night skiing, and sometimes we would night ski too. I’m also thankful I grew up a little before the twin tip fad, even though now I free ski on twin tips I’m glad I started on race skis. Race skis are not forgiving, if you can rip a turn through crud on GS skis you can do about anything. Often times in the course when I feel static on the ski I imagine I’m free skiing and that helps me work the ski to get energy out of it. Sometimes when I give the same suggestion to other’s I wonder whether they even know what I’m talking about. Anyway, I’ve gone off on a tangent about free skiing but back to the Valle Nevado camp. The first two days of GS were on fairly easy trails. I was pretty pleased with my skiing though, I was really focusing on putting as much pressure as I could on the ski above the gate, while still running a direct line and then just releasing below the gate. In order to be able to pull that off I had to be pretty technically sound. For me that meant having good ankle flexion, having my hips forward but straight up in the transition and really getting on the new outside ski early. Every day we skied on a new GS hill, which was pretty cool. As the days progressed each trail got a little more terrain and a little steeper, thus making it more challenging to accomplish my goals. As the trails got more difficult and I fatigued my skiing regressed a little but things were going ok. We began to move into Super G on a different trail, that was longer and had more flats. Super G has historically been worst event because I have always had problems finding the balance between turning and riding a flat ski. One of my strengths in tech has always been my ability to work the ski and create energy from ski, for whatever reason I have always struggled to trust the radius of the longer ski, instead I tend to “ride” the edge. These problems continued as well as poor aerodynamics and lack of ankle flexion. However, after the 3rd day of Super G I felt more comfortable and home on Super G skis, an event I just have not trained very much over my life. The lowpoint of the camp came on the last run of Super G when I leaned in, my skis caught up, I flew through the air, landed on my back and slid down the rest of the pitch on my back. Somehow along the way I managed to completely crack the back 4 or 5 inches of my helmet (somehow my head was fine,)
Sprain my MCL and land on my ski and cut my leg open. When I first got up I was panicking a little because my knee felt weird but I didn’t know what was wrong. When my coach rolled up my suit and my long John’s were stained red it was obvious what happened. It was a bummer because I missed 3 sessions of Slalom and 2 of GS, which were supposed to be 5 of the most intense sessions to end the camp. Hurting myself meant that I didn’t get any slalom training in Chile and won’t have any before I head to Keystone in November for an NDS camp but luckily we skied a lot of Slalom in Mt. Hood.

I am now finishing this blog in the Philadelphia airport after a week break in California before heading back to school. My cut is fine, my MCL still sprained but it is getting better so things are looking up. Now I have 4 weeks of intense dryland and school until Keystone and then the season begins!

Kieffer