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 Last week was the first ever US SKI CROSS camp in Telluride, CO. Team skiers Casey Puckett, Jake Fiala and myself finally had a chance to get some pre season skiing in. Tyler Shepherd our head coach has the responsibilities and challenges of running the show. Being under manned requires him to do it all. Timing, video, course maintenance, logistics, starter and when he can…give us feedback as our coach. He gets it done. Shep brought on some more US skiers to build depth to our team and battle our international competitors. JJ, Teller, Biche, Josh, Langley and Caitlan. On top of that, the US Ski Cross and Boarder Cross teams joined forces. The SBX team has a strong group of athletes lead by Shaun Palmer, Nate Holland, Nick Baumgartner, Seth Wescott, Graham Watenabe and Lindsey Jacobellis. Foley and Arch the SBX coaches have it dialed and we benefited a lot working together. Telluride rolled out the red carpet for us by shutting down our own run for the week and building us two tracks with a 2 man start gate. For me this was the first time I’ve been able to practice starts not at a competition with a course. And I need all the practice I can get. The Telluride Race Dept shuttled us run after run on a snowmobile for ski testing. 18 runs a day is a lot of track testing and your dead if you don’t have a sled to pull you back up the hill. We had exclusive access skiing fresh powder runs off Chair 9. Three steep and deep powder runs on the mountain didn’t stand a chance. We left no snow untracked, not a fresh stash left.. That is until tomorrow after this storm does it’s job and unleashes again. (Suppose to snow another foot or two this weekend) Thanks to The Boot Doctor’s in The Mountain Village for hooking me up with some Atomic Snoops to rip it that day. Telluride Ski Resort treated us like royalty. Thanks to them we had a successful trip and are much more on top of our game for the season. Jonathan Weyant who owns Richter Racing ski shop in Summit County / Breakenridge, CO gets a huge thanks for all his work this week turning out 20 plus Atomics a day for testing. I switched up my ski tech this summer and will be working with Jonathan for the next two seasons with Puckett and Fiala. The guy is a work horse and is one of the best out there. Ask him and he knows he can put the fastest skis on my feet. I like his confidence and will like it even more after our first SX comp this season in Lake Placid, NY Jan 19th.
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