Nearing the End of Another Season

The end of the season is getting closer and closer. We were down at the mountain on Wednesday and it was definitely spring skiing. If you can ski in Virginia, you can ski pretty much anywhere. We had decent man-made snow conditions for a lot of the winter, but we also had some awesome powder, not so awesome ice, and then the spring slush. I think we'll only make it down there once more, over the weekend. The resort is planning on Sunday being the last day of the season so this week/weekend will be it. Whitney and I had talked about going up to NH again so she could get in some more time on the slopes before Nationals, but neither of us was looking forward to the 9-hour trip. She'll just make do with what's here in Virginia while it lasts and also spend some time focused on school.

We're looking forward to our trip to Colorado in a couple of weeks. As of now, Whitney is the top ranked girl in her age group going and there's only 12 registered. There's still some invites out so we're not sure of the final numbers yet. It looks like she could reach her goal of making the podium this year. And she'll have a couple of the crazy boys from the Massanutten team to hang out with, cheer on, and board with while we're out there.

Although this season isn't quite finished yet, she's already looking towards next year. She's decided to go to college at the University of Maine at Farmington and has been talking with the ski and snowboard team coach there. When we were up for a visit, she had a chance to talk with a couple of guys on the ski team; they could tell her general details about conditioning, practices, and things like that but not much about snowboarding. She emailed the coach and has also been in contact with another snowboarder who is already there and is looking to build the snowboard team. I think this will be a good fit for her, she's already had experience building a team up and is excited about going there. The team competes in both USASA and the USCSA so she'll be able to keep working towards her snowboarding goals.

I can't wait to see how things go at Nationals this year and where she goes with snowboarding next season.