GREETINGS CATAMOUNT RACERS AND PARENTS,
We are coming off a fantastic weekend of racing which saw many of our Catamount athletes climbing podiums at numerous races throughout our region. Through the hard work of many, the Catamount Interclub Race came off in spectacular fashion with many of the kids taking home hardware and others achieving personal bests. The race was run under nearly perfect conditions. The track was mint and held up beautifully for the two runs taken by 310 + racers. We have seen tremendous improvement from all of the racers at all levels. It is important to recognize not only the accomplishments of those who were fortunate enough to podium at the races, but also how much each and every racer has improved so far. And there is much improvement, plenty of smiles and tons of laughter among friends yet to come as the skills of the racers continue to progress!!
Now, for weekend training plans – We have carefully reviewed the requests from all the Catamount coaches, and the hill space requests from outside groups, as well as the current and forecasted snow conditions. Mother Nature has been and continues to be unusually unkind to us this year and presented a huge challenge to creating a workable plan for all of us. Colin has been all the over mountain with his drill trying to find snow of a suitable depth on trails that lend themselves to training, as well as discussing the challenges with Mountain Ops. One of the biggest challenges (in addition to the depth of natural snow and lack of cold weather for making it) is dealing with the on-coming traffic from the public using Ripper which has imposed limitations on using both Catamount and race Slope at the same time. After considering all of the factors, here is what we have come up with:
Friday: CATAMOUNT IS CLOSED. Tri-State We had planned to train today at 5:00, but unfortunately, we have been rained out, the mountain is closed ,and consequently there will be no training.
Saturday: Interclub will train GS and drills on Race Slope in the am until approximately 12:30, when we will have to pull and yield the hill to a large group.
Tri-State U12-14’s will train GS on Lower Alley Cat in both the am and pm. We will have to stage and set BNET on LAC Saturday morning, which will push training back a bit. We encourage parents to come out to help as soon as the lifts open at 8:30. The more parents we have to help set BNET, the earlier we can begin training. BNET will be left up for U16’s to train on Sunday.
Tri-State U16-19’s will train SL on Lower CatamountSlope on skier’s left from the Onstage cutoff down in the am and pm.
Sunday:Mountain Vertical Dew Challenge all day
Interclub will be racing at Blandford.
Tri-State U12-14’s will be racing GS at BEAST
Tri-State U16’s will be training GS on Lower Alley Cat, and may be sharing a course with Ridgefield High School and a handful of Yorktown racers. The kids and coaches will have to pull down and store BNetafter training so that mountain ops can make snow later in the week later in the week. We ask that U16 parents share in this effort. Please look for Sonia to ask her for the time when the nets will be pulled.
Tri-State U19’s will be racing at Sundown.
We appreciate your understanding of the issues that we are facing and the challenges that confront us all as we devised these training plans. Despite the uncooperative weather, we are in the midst of a fantastic race season. We love being out on the hill with all of you and love to see the steady improvement and fun that you are all having.
Let’s all THINK SNOW (REALLY HARD)
See you all Saturday.
Thanks.
Bruce & Colin