2007
January 4, 2007 update
Happy new year!
former MHSSC counselor Brooke Miller has a friend heading south and looking for
connections......here's her message: I have a friend who wants to go down to Chile in
June/July and possibly work at a ski resort. Could
you forward along a note in the next update to ask
if anyone has connections down there they may be
willing to share?
Thanks! Brooke Brooke's contact info: brooke_rosalind@yahoo.com
from Jon Winslow: happy new years!!! pass
the word along in ur next update.
from Claudio
Calonder: Unfortunately, the snow in the Alps is now as
great as it looks in Oregon. Anyway, the
forecast looks good and we really pray for some
good powder.
Ray Dicius on what he got for Christmas: Anyway, I did get a nice gift. A free pair of
brand new race boots from an old friend still in
the ski biz. They fit. Went skiing this morning
for the first time in 6 years. Old body parts
were flying in formation. Now where's the damn
Advil...
from Maria
Schilling: In response to Uros's working at Buck
Hill...."brrrrr." It has been no colder than
about 32 in the past 3 weeks....We had pouring
rain the last two days,
which finally changed to snow. It is going
to be between 35-41 degrees this
week so we will lose that new snow. We
actually had to cancel
practice on the 31st because it was pouring.
We have only had about 4
inches of snow this entire winter thus
far....but have man-made snow from
some evenings that got cold enough and one week
in November that was colder.
Two weeks ago it was in the mid-50's. Anyway,
Minnesota is more like California this
year....which is great as a runner, but
unfortunate as ski coaches!! No matter what
though, we have gotten a lot
of training in on the man-made stuff over the
past couple weeks....tons
of kids visiting to train from Colorado, New
York, Wisconsin,
and of all things, California.....maybe the
weather here reminds them
of home. haha.
from Ridgley
Reece: Lisa has a new baby. 2 months old ... Arianna.
She is adorable. Her other daughter is
12 and she danced in the Nutcracker right before
Christmas. Then Courtney
12 played the Virgin Mary and the baby played
baby Jesus at the local
church Christmas pagent. Being a grandma
is pretty special.
And from my world.......I finished in 5th place in "the woody" Aloha Southridge alumni race (slalom). And finished a respectable 406th place (out of 951 people) in the new years eve midnight Portland first run. Robin
p.s. Enjoy this photo of Mike I took today at MHSSC........it snowed about a foot at the lodge last night. Notice Mike's vintage MHSSC pink baseball cap.
January 8, 2007
update
Hey, a few more staff updates
and pictures to share:
Spencer Raymond sent me a
photo from Mt Hood Meadows: Here's a sick photo from Meadows on
Thursday. My dad took it of me
skiing under shooting star.
update from Evan Mikkelson: (and see his photo) I thought I would just let you know how things are going here in Middlebury, VT. It's very, very warm here. We have hardly gotten any snow, and in the past week temperatures have been in the 60s throughout the state, as they have been elsewhere on the east coast. The Middlebury snow bowl is really hurting. I have been up there for the past 4 days because the Middlebury Ski patrol had it's tryouts and rookie training this past Thursday through Sunday, so I was up evaluating new rookies and then skiing with them over the weekend. There are two and a half runs open ( the half run is one where there is a mandatory dirt-gap jump to enter). At this point the only snow on the mountain is manmade snow, and even that is melting fast. It's supposed to get a little but colder in the next few days, which will at least allow us to make snow. -Evan
from Jon Winslow: im racing full time, right
now im out in steamboat
colorado right racing a few
Nor Ams and next Thursday im
heading off to Le Relais is in
Quebec. then its back to
park city for some more
training, then ill be off
again for a 6 race trip in
Canada...
from Joe Reis: Just had a mini MHSSC
reunion here at Sunday
River. Both Tom Sell and
Scotty Veenis were here for
Nor-Ams. With Mike, Anne,
Leo Menard and I already
here, it made for a decent
size group of alma mater.
Mary and the kids had come
along with Tom so the
Sell's all came over for a
dinner and visit at our
place. Had some laughs and
some great stories both from
Tom's current exploits and
MHSSC days. We went back as
far as Sim Thomas days when
talking about flex gates and
changes in tactics. Mary,
Peter and Maria are as
beautiful as ever...thank
god the kids look like Mary.
Mike and Anne are hitting
the power curve now with
competition season. Anne
has been coaching the I's
and II's with Mike in
addition to running our
Alpine Development program
(weekend program). Now Mike
is off to Canada with some
athletes and Anne is off to
Sugarloaf and the Eastern
Cups here at Sunday River.
It was 60 (yes sixty - not
sixteen) degrees here today
so we are still struggling
to get everything open.
Thankfully Sunday River has
great snow making capacity
so as soon as the temps drop
again (Sunday night) they
will start cranking out snow
again. Some of the smaller
areas however are not able
to do that and several races
have either been cancelled,
postponed or moved to either
Sunday River or Sugarloaf.
For those of you with snow -
enjoy it! We are envious.
Happy New Year, Joe
Timberline is building a
new high speed
quad.......it won't
affect summer skiing,
but it's supposed to
open up some new terrain
on the lower mountain: http://www.timberlinelodge.com/current_news/current_news_stillcreekbasin.php
some quick hitters: I
ran into Mike Langdon at Timberline this
weekend.........he was
teaching a snowboard
lesson. John Mulligan was at Mt Hood Meadows
this week, coaching his
boardercross athlete.
Also ran into Nancy Kastner at Timberline. She's
doing great, living in
Hood River, and her
daughter races for the
Hood River Valley high
school ski team. John Rust did course maintenance
at the Christine Cato
memorial race.....pro
slipper! I took Bill Whalley to 3 Portland trail
blazer games this
year........they lost
all 3.......he's bad
luck! Anyone else
wanna go to a game?
Someone with good luck?
If blazers score 100
points, you win a free
chalupa!
BREAKING NEWS:
Emily McConnell just had a baby girl
named Evangeline! Congrats Emily! (see pic)
Eric Baldwin (actually his wife) is expecting baby #2: Quick update from my side, Baby # 2 is on the way. Around April 1 he is coming into the world... Looking forward to it. Mason is 2.5 now.. unbelieveable how time flies. He is skiing in the yard, and talks about going to the big hill sometime, so it is just about time to get him a little brain bucket and let him have at it.
Robin's youtube video pick of the week: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqJnYedfAYo
January 15, 2007
update
Hi all,
It's cold here in the pacific northwest. Cold
for us anyway.
From Bill Whalley: (see pics)
I surfed yesterday. Went to shortsands (Oswald state park) there was snow on the beach! Pretty cool. Good waves, sunny, and no wind. It was a beautiful day, though very cold when we got out of the water. Bill
Other
staff updates:
from Allison White: I've just opened a show in San Francisco called The
circle by W. Somerset Maugham.
It's about love and scandal in England, 1921. having a great time.
My 'office' is a
theater that seats 1000!
from Courtney Vermass: Just wanted to
let you know I got my first magazine
article published in the February issue of Powder
mag. The article is on roxy (a well-known, all-girls
surf company) and their jump into
the ski market. It
will be in stores soon, so check it out!
from Gregor Druzina: First I wish happy, happy New Year
to all you guys. I went back
yo
January 18, 2007
update
Hi
all, It snowed in Portland this
week. 2-5 inches depending on
what part of
town..........what's the
significance? To people who ski
or snowboard and are used to
dealing with it and driving in
it, there is very little
significance. But to the other
93% of the population, it's
cause for panic. Bill Whalley sent me this youtube link that
took place in Portland near the
MAC club/PGE Park (where the
Portland Beaver baseball team
plays): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPE8vL5hlFA
It's a hilly section of portland,
although it's hard to tell from
that high-up camera angle.
Enjoy the misery!
BREAKING NEWS:
Debbie Russell is engaged! After
almost 8 years of dating and
enough years
of living together to quality as
common law we're finally ready.
Jon Winslow report: It was
-19 here in park city last night
brrrrrrrrrr and it didnt get
above the teens in the day
Maria Schilling report from Minnesota: YES---it is finally cold here.
It finally
snowed last night...3 inches.
Since it is cold, the snow is
light and dry...which is rare
here. It was 3 degrees on Sat
but I did not have to coach so I
ran 13 miles with my running
team...it was fine except into
the wind....
John Rust Request: Rust is
headed to Squaw Valley on
January 26.......he's wondering
if anyone has the inside scoop
on discount lift tickets there?
Anyone have some connections?
Dan Tsai has his 22nd birthday tomorrow!
happy birthday Dan..........*note.....nothing
new happens at age 22.....it's
all about age 18 or
21.........or the social
security check
collecting age............or the
age when your auto insurance
goes down.
Camp news:
The new lodge will be ready to
house campers by 3rd or 4th
session this summer (this
according to my
sources).......check out these
pics I took yesterday. We need
a name for the new
lodge.........anyone have any
suggestions? But then again,
does the first lodge even have
an official name? The property
is known as "The lodges at
Salmon River Meadows"........so
do all the lodges fall into this
category? As you can see, I'm
just filling in space at the
bottom of the
email........nothing to see
here..........go on to your next
email.
January 26, 2007
update
1. Bill Whalley: The lodges should be named
based on color, kinda like
the vans. I think
aquamaroon would be a cool
name. Not exactly sure what
color that is, but I like
the name.
2. Jamie Hinderliter: I think it needs a ninja
name...
3. Janet Lorton: maybe the buildings should
each be named a fish, maybe
a type of salmon. or a name
of one of the glaciers on
the mountain. or snow bunny
1 and 2.
4. Spencer Raymond: Name: Keeys Lodge or
something? Whatya think? I
donno...If we do name them
we need like a ribbon
cutting ceremony or
something and crack a bottle
of champagne on the
doorknob.
Britta Sorensen update: I am running a 1/2 marathon
in Maui on February 10th and
I am training for another
marathon in June. I'm not
sure which one I will run
yet, but it will likely be
San Diego again.
Jay Balenger update: (see pic of him
jibbing the urban rail)
right now im in SLC hitting
lots of urban rails, i go
home back to tahoe on the
23rd.... back to northstar
to chill with Rick, luke ,
the bird, ryan kid..... its a mount hood
crew all over again.
Jon Winslow update: I just hat my best NOR-AM
finish last weekend in
Quebec i made to the first
round finals. I was up
against U.S. Snowboard team
member Ryan McDonald and was
knocked out in the the
second run by the full
differential but i still
took 15TH PLACE :) im stoked
Ryan Zacharia: Those in the East will
appreciate this shoutout
amongst all the talk of the
West... was in Sugarloaf
with my brother--it snowed
about 17 inches on Tuesday.
On Wednesday it was a cool
-10 at the base and -30 at
the summit (measured atop
Spillway lift). Almost all
of the lifts were closed,
but the Bateau T-bar was
opened so we took it and
hiked up near the Snowfields
to get some freshies.
Despite the near frostbite
and a broken rib (due to
collision with rock), it was
totally worth it. Eastern
skiing rocks (my sense of
humor sucks, pun intended).
Scott Carlis I
am still living in portland
and taking classes at
Portland State. I actually
live up near where all the
crashes were happening by
PGE Park. I could hear some
of them that morning. So I
decided the only way for me
to get to work, which is
just off of the intersection
of West Burnside and
Braodway, was to strap on
some old rental skis and ski
down the middle of Burnside
from NW 23rd Ave. I got
some good hard pack turns
and had to skate the flats
and then dropped into a tuck
just past powells book
store. It was a good time
and I definitely got some
looks at some of the stop
lights.
Shawna Riley: I saw John Rust's request so I thought I'd throw mine out too. I'll be at Big Mountain, MT Feb. 17-24. Does anyone have connections for discounts etc? Shawna's contact info: Shawna Riley (work) sriley@maynard.k12.ma.us
February
9, 2007 update
Hello MHSSC'ers! According to my
sources, it's Mike Annett's 64th birthday on
Saturday (February
10)
Happy birthday uncle Mike!
BREAKING NEWS:
Izi Jerman is a father! Izi's words: On the 9th of
February at 16:10
(GMT) was born EVA
Jerman. She weights
3,15 Kg and is 51 cm
tall. She is doing
just fine so does
her mother...father
is ok, but bunch of
friends are coming
over to celebrate
the miracle. cheers, izi
Chelsea Stamer is making a spring
break trip to MHSSC
to ski and help out
during spring camps
in March. She's
also planning a trip
to France in early
summer.
Jack Suierveld update: Snow's thin but
highly skiable in
Tahoe. Presently, I
am in Salt Lake City
for the 16th Winter
Deaflympic Games
with Nicole Brill
who attended the
masters camp last
June. All is going
quite well with
speed training runs
through Saturday the
4th. She will be
skiing in the
downhill on Sunday.
Following this,
comes the super-g
and the combined.
Next week will be
finalized by the gs
and the slalom. John
Rust should be proud
as Nicole looks to
be placing in the
top 5 in each event
barring the
unforeseeable. For Now, Jack P.S. I have been
enjoying a great
beer brewed right
here in SLC. It's
called "Polygamy
Porter".
Here are 2 updates
from mogul coach Darren
Owen. Darren is
coaching Patrick
Deneen and Jay Panther on
the NorAm mogul
circuit. (see
attached pics)
January 26, 2007: Today was a great
day to be a coach.
We are in Quebec Canada at a very
high level event a(
nor am). For those of you not
familar with
competive skiing
these are the best skiers
in north America and
several Japanese
skiers. My boy
Patrick took second
place. He is such a
great kid! We have
worked so hard for
results like this!
We have three more
stops on this tour
one in Canada, next
week and two in the
western united
states. Then off to
Vermont for the US
nationals. Days like
today are so
emotional. I am so
proud of Patrick, I
wanted to share it
with the people care
about. Check out the
pictures they will
make you happy too.
February 5,
2007: Good morning
friends and
family, Yesterday was
another great
day for Focus
Freestyle!!!!!!!! One of my
boys Jay Panther
riped up his
Qualifying run
but just missed
the finals by a
few skiers. We
are very pleased
by his
performance!
Patrick
Qualified first
by a full point.
This is a large
margin. We were
so excited.
Patrick ended up
third after a
large
controversy and
judging mistake
in the round of
six. Patrick
stayed composed
and dueled for
third place,
Taking out one
of the top US
team
skiers by a
large margin.
Another great
day to be a
coach. I hope
you are all
enjoying the
updates and
photos. We have
had a great time
in Canada and
are looking
forward to the
next two stops
in Idaho and
Montana. I'm
sure the boys
and i will kick
some more ^#*
February 10, 2007 update
Izi's baby
pics attached:
February 13, 2007 update
More MHSSC updates: Vance Lemley: Eva and I are doing great.
Life is good, but very busy
here. I am teaching my private
dudes and training instructors
in the ski school. Summers are
going to be mostly building here
to pay the bills. It is
possible that we could bring the
kids out for a session sometime
in the not too distant future.
They are turning into really
good skiers. Christopher is now
seven and totally arcing. Look
out. I had some sad news
today. Do you remember a long
time ago camper named Chris Bove?
He was in my group for several
years, and probably staff. He
has been teaching skiing at
Snowmass for about six or seven
years off and on. Anyway, he
hit a tree and was killed
yesterday. Big open blue run,
probably going fast and slid
into a tree. Died after seven
hours of surgery of internal
injuries. http://www.vaildaily.com/article/20070211/NEWS/102110038
Darren Owen: Today
was the most successful day ever
for Focus Freestyle! Jay Panther scored his best score ever and
placed 9Th. At this level and on
this tour a top ten is a great
accomplishment . Patrick Deneen also scored his best ever and
won the event .........1St
place............ The event was
on fog hold for two hours with
only the last quarter of the
field left to run. I don't know
how my boys skied so well after
standing in the cold for two
hours. This could be the
proudest moment of my coaching
carrier. Today was one of those
days I will never forget. We
have to be the hardest working
group in freestyle. The work is
paying off in a big way! I hope
you enjoy the photos. Best
regards,
Darren
Kristen O'Brien: Jon is in Tamarack, ID
and just phoned me to say his
athlete won the NorAm today,
Bryan Wilson. After Idaho is an
event in Montana, then JR Worlds
in Switzerland. The last one I
couldn't let Jon go without
me...so anyone who has skied in
Switzerland in March please let
me know were we can be tourists
before Jon starts working in
Ticino.
Matjaz Stare: Right now World Champ in Are (Swe)
is on the go. You can also see
Andrej who is the best skier in
Slovenia National Team in winter
2007. Good job Andrej! Matjaz
Ridgley Reece: Ann E Reece spent the weekend
with me down in Newcastle. Not
much snow in Tahoe. she is living in my house
in Gardnerville, she skiis and
boards at Kirkwood these days.
Northstar also. she will be 30
in July. Boy does time fly,
especially when Ann E Reece is
almost 30.
February
23, 2007 update
BREAKING NEWS:Andrej
Jerman won the Garmisch world cup
downhill today! woo hoo!
(thank you craig bowden,
mike annett, brian robb, &
john rust for the heads up)
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/23/sports/EU-SPT-SKI-ALP-WCup-Mens-Downhill.php
http://www.fis-ski.com/uk/604/610.html?sector=AL&raceid=48995
And another great update
from Darren Owen: Hi
Friends and family, We
just returned from Montana
Today washington the nor am
duel mogul championships.
Great head to head action.
My boy Jay scored well and
qualified for the duel
event. In the first round
Jay "took out" a good friend
who is a new member of the
US ski team. In the second
round Patrick and Jay
dueled. It was one of the
tightest heats of the day
Patrick eked out Jay to go
on to take .......2ed
place........ This finish
clinched the grand prix win
for Patrick.......PATRICK IS
BACK ON THE US FREESTYLE SKI
TEAM!!!!!!! We are
stoked!!
Darren
update from Juke Nord: I'm still studying physics
and I'm in the middle of my
4th year of five here in Trondheim. It's
a very nice city, big enough
but not too big. I think
we're about 30000 students
out of a 160000 population.
I'm coaching kids in the
club here and probably spend
more time on the mountain
than in school.. But hey,
you've got to enjoy life
when you can, right? The
last two summers I got these
summer job offers at
Statoil which I just
couldn't say no to, so MHSSC
unfortunatly just had to be
put on hold. I've met a
seriously fantastic girl who
also study here, but right
now she's in San Fransico
for six months. I'm going
over to her on march 23rd
for 2 1/2 weeks. Thought
about skiing
in Lake Tahoe and making a
trip to las Vegas and LA.
Does anyone have an idea
about some must-see on that
trip? I remember the day when the
blue bus broke loose. Fritzy
and I were loading the
rafts when the blue monster
full of kids suddenly
decided to make a run for
the river. Scotty made an
awesome job getting those
kids out before it was
completly submerged after less
then 2 minutes. During that
whole thing in the following days, I doubt that
Mike's pulse ever went over
65..Well, life is great to
me......Hope you all prosper
in happiness and whealth,
Jocke, your swedish
ambassador
March
5,
2007 update
More Andrej video, including his
winning run: This one is his
winning run clip
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT9Sh_jb6JA&NR
podium shot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRbLXtBWhfk
and this one is
almost 10 minute
clip of his hometown
reception (no
english language
included...subtitles
don't exist)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gt6z5V9cxo&eurl=http://www.vest.si
And Rust wanted me to pass on
this youtube clip
about the dog with
skilz:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YTqbZdWutg
update from Spencer Raymond: It's started to get a little warmer here. It gets above 30 sometimes now. Ski team is over and it was great. Varsity is leaving for Nationals in Colorado on Monday. Both the Men's and woman's teams won our division and region. In all my JV races I never finished outside the top three. I even beat a varsity guy the last race of the season. I've been real busy working at WAER, Syracuse's NPR station, and at CitrusTV, the student TV station. I even landed an anchor spot. That means I anchor the news once a week. You can find one of the shows here or here (Feb 27th). I also work as a reporter if I have time. WAER is keeping me busy. I'm working on a few projects there right now. I found an internship for this summer. Some of you will remember when a huge TV truck came to LOHS to cover a boys basketball game against Oregon City. I'll be working with the production company that put that game on. They are basically a middle man between networks and on-site sports production. For example, ESPN says "we want this game on our network" then the company I'll be interning for hires all the crew, talent, production truck and coordinates all the logistics and operations related to the venue. It's in Seattle so I'll be living there for a while this summer. I'm going back to Oregon for spring break. A little west coast skiing is in order. That's all from the Salt City.
In case you didn't hear, Andrej Jerman followed up his 1st place finish with a 2nd place finish the very next day. He's now in 3rd place in the world cup downhill standings
March 16,
2007 update
BREAKING NEWS:
Eric Baldwin is a
father........AGAIN! Check
out the attached photos. In
Eric's words: Last Wednesday at 3:47 am
Oscar Eric Baldwin came into
the world 4 weeks early. He
weighed 7lbs, 3oz, and was
19.75 inches. Mom and Baby
are doing well!
other mhssc updates:
from Brandy Powell: Saturday i raised money for
the American Cancer
Society. there was an event at Stevens Pass called the
Vertical Challenge. 24 hrs
of Stevens Pass to raise
money for the American
Cancer Society. 2
chairlifts were open from 10
am sat the 3rd until 10 pm,
then one chair until 10 am
sun the 4th. i rode until
330 am. the snow was crap
so i passed out in the ski
school locker room until
someone came in at 7am. went
back to work until 945 and
then took a run to close out the
event. i didnt keep track
of my vertical feet or
number of runs. they are
supposed to email that stuff
to us. i did raise $269.
my goal was $250. other than that i'll be
working at stevens for the
next month or so. they have made me a supervisor.
the snow has been great.
lots of pow days and some
spring slush park jibbin
days. sat nights we get
silly and go snowskate and
get hurt. its way too much
fun.
From Christian Fritz: this May I will have
officially finished my first
year (in a year and a half)
of grad school from
beautiful Clark University
for a masters in education.
It was a lot of work but
totally worth it, I'm
halfway done! Finally
getting out of this A-Hole
that is Massachusetts and
moving out West. I have
been talking to people this
winter about a ski
instructor job at Jackson
Hole, Sun Valley, and Vail.
Yaaay! Nothing certain yet,
except that I certainly wont
be in New England next
winter. Double Yaaaay! As you may or may not know,
I have been considering
re-enlisting in the
military. I have been
talking to a recruiter here
in Worcester. The Marines
rejected me because of my
age, they anly accept
recruits under age 30, even
those with previous
service. The Army however,
was interested and had some
great opportunities for a
college educated guy in his
30s. They will even let me
start as a seargent, which
was my rank in the corps. I
am going to Fort Benning in
Georgia in May for two days
to take a bunch of tests.
If I qualify for service,
then I talk to a recruiting
officer about an MOS (job),
work out an enlistment
contract, and set a date to
report for training.
Needless to say, if this
works out, I won't be
working in Vail this winter,
but I think this is an
awesome opportunity for me.
from Jon Winslow: im doing well i have had
some really good training
days out here in Park City.
only bad news is i broke my
hand in a few places & tore
some ligamesnts a few weeks
ago at a slalom race up in
Alberta, Canada. it was a
big crash but i got up and
still ended up 21st. Im in a
cast for a few more weeks
the the doc will take a look
to see if i still need
surgery. hope i don't! other
then that i can still ride;
it just takes a little while
to get a glove on.
5 days later Jon wrote me another update: well here the funny part i
just broke my other hand
yesterday no now i have 2
broken hands.
How does one function
without the use of both
hands? poor guy!
And here's a 2 minute shorty
on the Southridge ski team's
trip to STATE this year:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmzqZOr_Jb4
I know some of you guys
coached our Aloha/Southridge
kids at camp the last couple
of summers. Our girls
kicked butt at STATE,
finishing 5th in GS and
slalom.........and as you
can see in the video, the
boys crashed and burned,
finishing 13th. The kid who
crashed into the fence and
then got up and nose dived
thru the finish line, is
mhssc camper-staff Tim
Campbell. They counted
his time......the rule says
you can finish the last 2
gates with one
ski..........but I think the
ski is supposed to be
attached to the ski
boot.......
Camp update:
Spring camps are now in
progress. We had one adult
this past week. A freeskier
from Philadelphia. Laurent
coached him all week. And
Chelsea Stamer spent some of
her spring break visiting
mhssc, and helping cook some
meals for the one camper
dude........and she joined
me for a Portland Trail
Blazer game too. (blazers
got killed by detroit)..........one
of the spring sessions has
more than a dozen campers,
so that should keep things a
little more busy up there. The camp blog page has been
updated: Read up about Andrej and see some current pics of
the Palmer chairlift. http://www.mthood.com/session_blogs.htm
April 14,
2007 update
Hi
MHSSC'ers,Have
you done your taxes yet? the
clock is ticking! I finished
mine 6 days early! woo hoo!
MHSSC just finished up spring
session 5 with about 18-20
campers in attendance. Rust coached the ski racers, Laurent coached the ski
better's, and Mark Stegall coached the
snowboarders.......they spent
the week skiing/riding at Mt
Hood Meadows, where they
experienced a variety of weather
and snow conditions. The new 2nd lodge is coming
along nicely. I don't have any
new pictures, and haven't
actually walked up there to take
a look, but I know the plumbing
and electrical is going in and
the expected lodge opening will
be mid-June. And
if you are on facebook, you
might have already read the
following: this is not official, but the
name of the main MHSSC lodge
will be "Chinook".........and
the new lodge that is under
construction right now will be
called "Coho".
The MHSSC property is called "the
lodges at Salmon River Meadows",
so that's why we went with
salmon species for lodge names. The idea to name the lodges
after Salmon species came from
former MHSSC staffer Janet Lorton Moran. And speaking of facebook.com,
the MHSSC staff group membership
is up to 46 members. Why
haven't YOU joined the
revolution? What the hell is
facebook, you ask? I don't have
a good answer. I'm getting the
impression that it's mostly a
high school/college age
thing........but it's a website
where people network, share
comments, share photos, and
flirt with each other. I need
more of you old school mhssc
staffers to sign up, so I don't
feel so old. www.facebook.com
The MHSSC staff group link: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2261481583 I think you have to sign
yourself up before you can
actually see the group pages.
And if you search around, you'll
also find a "Andrej Jerman downhill king" group, and a
"Government Camp bar team"
group, and many others. Here's
another MHSSC group page with
223 members:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2204548688
ok, enough facebook. here
is a staff update:
From Darren Owen: Hi, Friends and Family, It has been a great season! The boys trained and competed well. We all worked hard and had allot of fun. The boys accomplished there goals. Jay had great results all year. At the US selection event he Qualified for finals bolth days with top ten finishes. After a successful run at the Nor Am Tour Jay qualified 5th at US nationals And finished top ten both days, 5th on sunday. Jay secured a spot on the US development team! Patrick really shined on the Nor Am tour this year. At every stop Patrick qualified high on the list and won qualifying at Val St Comb. Patrick was on the podium at every stop Including A win In Idaho and second in montana at the Nor Am championships. Patrick secured a spot on the US Freestyle ski team and is now focused on earning world-cup starts. As for me I am focused on spring training and preparing for summer skiing and next winter. Hope you have all enjoyed the updates. Darren
April 19,
2007 update
Hi MHSSC'ers! a
couple of fundraising
efforts by Emily Sampson
and Craig
Bowden......read below
starting with Emily's: from Emily Sampson In May I am heading to
Darwin, Australia to
play field hockey representing
the US in the 2007
Arafura Games. As
exciting as that
sounds, it costs an arm
and a leg. Since arms
and legs are
important to play, I am
trying to fundraise some
money to go. Attached is
a donation form that you
can print out and send
back to me (address
on the bottom of the
page). I'm also selling
discount cards for
$20. These send you to
a site where, on the
first $500 you spend
there, you can get
50-75% off all Nike
merchandise. If you
would like one of those,
send me your address and
I'll get one out to you.
Every dollar counts, so
if you can help, I would
really appreciate it.
Emily Sampson
163
Thurlow St.
Pymouth, NH
03264
and from Craig Bowden: Hello again everyone!
It's hard to believe,
but my second ski season
at Rowmark has come to
an end! We had a busy
and successful season,
and are ready to enjoy
the summer. Christine
and I have easily
transitioned from skiing
down snow to climbing up
rocks. Spring also
brings about the
reincarnation of the
snowed-out Rowmark Golf
Marathon fundraiser. I
don't know if you
recall, but our day of
golf last fall was
cancelled because of an
early season snow storm.
We are hoping for better
weather this time
around; my goal is to
play 100 HOLES in one
day! Thanks to all of
you for your previous
donations and pledges. I
will send you a report
for the day, including
number of holes sunk,
number of blisters on my
hands, and SPF of the
sunscreen I had to use.
If you are still
interested in donating
or pledging, please use
the attached pledge form
before the official day,
May 12. Thanks to all of
you again for your
support. Sincerely,
Craig
Women's Coach
Rowmark Ski Academy
Rowland Hall - St.
Mark's School
843 Lincoln Street
Salt Lake City, UT
84102
Phone: 801 355 7494
Fax: 801 355 0474
Website: www.rowmark.org
E-mail: craigbowden@rowmark.org
Other staff nuggets:
Whistler fans, got this
from Spencer Raymond:
A new gondola will link
the two peaks at
Whistler. Whoa.
http://intrawest.rsc03.net/servlet/cc5?pOQSUBWTQTVkOjHPuhgKxnuHptQJhuVaVRVJhglHJlXpKVYAUWTDY
Janet Lorton Moran won her UC Davis alumni
ski race.....you go
girl!
the MHSSC staff facebook page is growing by the
day........recent
additions:
come join us! here's
the link: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2261481583
Robin
P.S. are you still cool? see below
Are you still cool?
This
test is
based on
how cool
you were
in High
School
and what
crowd
you ran
with,
etc.,
but it's
still
pretty
accurate
by
today's
standards.
You may
want to
send it
to your
friends
to see
if
they've
changed.
LET'S
SEE; ARE
YOU
STILL A
COOL
PERSON?
(Click
on the
link
below to
find
out.)
http://www.sailinganarchy.com/general/2002/cool_test.htm
Jeff Moore update:I
have been promoted to chef at the peruvian
lodge.Please inform the natives. i might try and
stop by at
the begining of july for a day or two...
I'll keep you posted.(the
videographer formerly known
as Number 2)
May 20, 2007 update
Hi kiddies, camp starts in one week. final preparations are happening and last I heard we have quite few campers signed up for session 1. I don't have much to write about this time around, but here are a few nuggets from some former staffers:
Debby Russell sent
me this youtube clip of mad ping pong skilz
to the tune of Rocky music........really
worth the 2 minutes and 44 seconds of your
day to watch it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFZevw1AHZs
Emily question of the day: Somebody
hands you $100 cash......you are at
a mall.......and you have 15 minutes
to spend it........What do you buy?
(the mall has ice skating, and a
movie theater, and the usual
stores)......you can't pocket the money.
Camp arrival day is tomorrow. Nic weather is in the forecast, so we should have a good first session on the hill. Got some good answers to the "Emily Question" from last time: Q: Somebody hands you $100 cash......you are at a mall.......and you have 15 minutes to spend it........What do you buy? (the mall has ice skating, and a movie theater, and the usual stores)......you can't pocket the money.
I received:
Jeff Moore:
give the money to the homeless guy
outside...
Jay Belanger:
i would walk my ass into a clothing
store and buy some clothes... cause
right now i have a limited supply
Shawna Riley:
a massage, some Lindt dark chocolate 70%
or more cacao, and a strawberry Orange
Julius or two
Jeff
Woodson:
I would spend the money in one shot. I
would paid for a ride on the Zamboni.
Thats how it done, kids. Jeff Woodson
Formerly know as Cook.
Chelsea Stamer is in France this summer. i live with a
host family right outside of the city
and its really nice and they are really
nice and they have 2 kids (well, 4 but
two are older and not living at home)
and they are really nice too...they also
have 2 dogs who are great....AND THEIR
HOUSE IS AMAZING!!!!!
Session 1, 2007 update
Hellooooooooooo! Session 1
went pretty well. We had 38
campers...........which is the
most number of campers for
session 1 since we switched to
the one-week-long sessions
several years ago. We had 3
ski race groups, 1 snowboard
race group (9 SB racers), 2
mogulers, 3 snowboard freeriders,
and 4 freeski terrain
parkers.........next week, we
only have 17
campers..........we'll have more
staff here than actual campers.
Nice weather all
week........Tuesday was WINDY,
but the rest of the week was
warm/hot. We might see some
rain showers for session 2 I
heard. Sunday arrival day
was COLD! Terry McLeod did
a challenge course training
session with some of the
staffers and everybody was
dressed in multiple
layers, anything to stay
warm. It was so cold, we cut
the training session a little
short so we could go inside and
warm up. The cold temps hung
around over-night and we
actually had a dusting of new
snow on the ground in Govy on
Monday morning. Some of the
counselors took a hike up to the
top of the hill behind the camp
lodge on Sunday. Elliot Halverson discovered a nice peaceful place
to float on an intertube in the
Salmon River, just down the
highway from the lodge. Allison Higginbotham gave up her counseling career to
join the K-staff this summer. Jason
Hey will move from the K-staff to
race coach starting session 3. Mark
Stegall and his snowboard crew has been
hammering away at creating some
new features for our private
terrain park.......as Darren Owen stated:
"our
park is going to be world class".
The new lodge is coming along
nicely. The drywall is up, the
new bunks have been delivered,
and the contractors are hard at
work getting the place ready to
be inhabited soon. Elliot started a new trend this
summer.......he made a list that
he put up in the kitchen that he
keeps track of how many times he
eats out at Panda Express and
also how many times he goes to
Charlie this summer. Bill Whalley quickly followed suit with a
list of how many mhssc cookies
he has eaten this summer.......Feeney's list is how many trips to
Charlies (alcohol vs non alcohol
visits)........and my own list
of how many times I operate the
Juiceman juicer. I imagine more
lists will follow suit soon. Irene Slisky is here now with her new hubby Warren.
Irene's first time back to mt
hood in 5 years. She was skiing
some pretty good slalom this
week with her new knee
replacement (are you reading
this Tom Sell?) Terry McLeod was victorious in a game of
"P-I-G" vs myself and Darren.
Yes, I lost a game of
PIG.........I'm 0 and 1 for the
year. Kick me when I'm down. I
can take it. BUT.........I
still haven't lost a game of
"H-O-R-S-E" in about 4-5 years.
We had two new staffers join the
mhssc family last week: Lorry Brenner is a new counselor, and Dan Meece is a new videographer. You can
see what they look like here: http://www.mthood.com/staff.htm
Bill
Whalley went running for the first time
in 8 years. The zipline has a
new "man-lift" to lower the
zippers down from the cable
after they come to a stop.
(photos coming in a future
email). This new lift will make
the zipline feature way more
easy to operate. Anyone looking
for a high school ski team
coaching job in South Lake
Tahoe? I think it's just a two
day a week commitment
(Saturday/Monday). Let me know,
and I'll give you a contact
name. Terry McLeod is moving on from his MHSSC
career..........at least for the
rest of this summer. He took on
a new job closer to home in
Idaho at camp Mivoden. http://www.mivoden.com/ Terry said this camp offers
"everything" except of course
skiing/snowboarding. Terry told
me he met his wife at this camp
way back when. He might
comeback for a short visit to mt
hood in August.........Terry is
one of the few individuals that
has put in more than 10 years
working at mhssc. We'll miss
you big time Terry! More than
you know. Oh, and one last
thing........Grant
Wilson..........he
likes to see his name in the
camp updates.........so there
you go Grant! Grant tried to
guilt Terry into staying, but it
didn't work. Robin
Session 2, 2007 update
Greetings mhssc staffers past
and present, Rain, snow, wind,
fog, mist, hail,
thunder/lightning........and even
a little sunshine......we had it
all this week. But we managed
to ski 4 of the 5 days. We had
15 kids and 2 adults this
week.......It was an eventful
session despite the small number
of campers. Kids went caving
or movie/bowling/laundry on the
day the lifts were closed. One
of the camper-diggers injured
himself off a jump on Friday.
He injured his back........did
the whole ambulance thing. I
did not hear the extent of his
injuries before I left camp for
the weekend. The injury bug hit
2 staffers this week........Nolan
Willard dislocated his shoulder on
Monday in a terrain park wreck.
From what I heard, Mark Stegall and Co. tried to help Nolan put
his shoulder back in place while
still up on the hill.
Unfortunately it did not work. Nolan managed to ski down
the hill on his own and got
himself to the ski patrol room.
He was in intense pain! On a
scale from 1 to 10, Nolan said
his pain was "25". I drove him
to the clinic in Welches. The
one doctor there was busy with
another patient, and then was to
leave for lunch break after
that.........so we got back in
the car and kept driving west.
We went to the clinic in
Sandy.........they wouldn't take
him either. They said they
were "too busy"......ugh! So we
kept heading west..........to
the Emergency Urgent Care in
Gresham.......they admitted him
immediately. The doctor there
drugged Nolan up (a shot
in the ass) and tried 2 or 3
different techniques to relocate
his shoulder back in
place.......None of them
worked........So they sent us to
Providence hospital in
Portland. By this time, Nolan's shoulder had been
dislocated for about 5-6
hours............Anyway, I sat
there in the hospital room
watching 3 doctors try several
techniques to get his shoulder
in place.........each one
resulted in HUGE pain for Nolan. It was hard to
watch. He was hooked up to an
IV full of drugs, oxygen, heart
monitor........they were tugging
and pulling on him in every
direction, using towels and
wraps for traction.........Nolan would go from snoring asleep to
yelling "let
go of my arm" the
next moment.......Finally they
knocked him out with some
super-drug and were able to put
his arm back in place.......what
an ordeal! Anyway, Nolan is recovering and I think he
plans on coaching this coming
session. Newbie video asst Dan Meece,
filled in as freeski coach while Nolan was on the injured
list. Mark Stegall strained his knee in a
freak slipping accident up in
the terrain park........Mark was unsure of the extent of the
injury and was planning on
getting it checked out. We
had a new K-staff join the ranks
last week: Catherine Warchal. Catherine was a
camper-staff a few years ago. I
think Bill told me we
have 4-5 new counselors that
start this next
week.......perhaps we need to
add some kind of MHSSC staff
initiation ritual? any
suggestions? Make all the
newbies walk over hot coals? Elliot Halverson saw a bear at frog lake. Jay Belanger caught a couple fish up there
too (see pic). A snowcat ran
over one of the new mhssc
terrain park boxes last
week........the box was buried
under the new snow............Mark said the box was marked with
some bamboo, but the cat driver
ran over the bamboo.......then
ran over the box.......ugh! Dave Curran wore a full body wetsuit for GS
training on Friday......maybe
he's starting a new ski racing
trend? With the wet funky
weather, we ended up moving the
camp picnic to Thursday out at
White River Falls state
park.........this is the place
we used to go cliff jumping
about 10+ years ago.......the
same place coach Kevin McDevitt dove in from the highest point
and hit a log that was just a
few feet under the surface of
the water.......although he
escaped any broken bones, his
hip "still hurts" he told me on
friday. Anyway, at the picnic,
some of the staffer boys went
fishing upstream from the
falls......and some ticks
attacked Nolan and Belanger.......lucky nobody
got bit......ticks are BAD!
Lyme disease is BAD! http://www.idph.state.il.us/public/hb/hblyme.htm
HEAD skis
is a new camp sponsor.......or
something like that. I think
they are setting up a demo thing
at camp. I've heard rumors that
former Canadian downhiller Todd Brooker might make an
appearance at camp. To see the
infamous Todd Brooker crash, go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlRFytkhdyI
Evan Mikkelson beat me in ping pong 21 to 11,
then 21 to 7..........last year
he beat me 21-3 so I'm making
progress. He has mad pong skilz. I'll try and take some photos of
the new "coho" lodge.........Mike hopes it is ready in time for
session 4. I had chinese food
for dinner tonight.........my
fortune cookie said "you
will be called upon to help a
friend in trouble".....so
I have that to look forward to
next session. here are some staff action pics
from Friday......the one sunny
day of the week.........p.s. Feeney had been to Charlies 10 times
this summer already........TEN!
Session 3, 2007 update
Good afternoon, Rogan just called me and said
I was slow at getting
the session 3 staff camp
update sent
out...........so here it
is in all its
glory:Today's newsletter
will be in numbered
style.......like David Letterman's
top 10 list.
1. Yesterday was Polly Hopkins 23rd birthday! Polly
is in 2 of the attached
photos........happy
b-day Polly!
2. On Monday morning Spencer Raymond was
preparing his breakfast
bowl of cereal, when I
suggested he try "coke"
instead of the standard
"milk" in his bowl of
raisin
bran/granola cereal. He
tried it and said he was
energized all day on the
hill.
3. Monday we had crazy
weird snow on
Palmer........After the
groomers did their
thing, it
rained......then froze
on top......then it
snowed some
more.......so it was a
combination of an ice
layer over snowpack,
mixed in with drifting
light powder........not
exactly ideal training
conditions..........people
were crashing all over
the place in the AM.
4. Jason Hey coached some really
young kids last week,
including a 5 year old
girl, who had some
issues skiing the
steeper upper palmer.
Jason had to give her a
piggy-back ride down to
the flatter terrain. I
caught some of this on
video.......perhaps it
will make its way to
youtube.com someday.
5. Bill Whalley rescued the rope on the
log walk..........the
first significant
challenge course issue
since Terry McLeod's "retirement".
6. Speaking of the
challenge course, see
the photos of the new "manlift"........now
it's WAY easier to get
campers off down the
cable after they zip
down..........I saw one
kid zip all the way to
the tree.......he was
able to grab the tree,
and start climbing up
the staples......
7. Mallory Hale arm wrestled newbie
counselor Chad Kossar at the
picnic..........Mallory
licked Chad's hand as a
strategy tactic. I
think the match ended
immediately after the
lick.
8. Catherine Warchal accidentally dropped her
cell phone and digital
camera down the picnic
shelter chimney thing.
The same thing happened
to Jon Winslow a year or two ago, so
they put that previous
rescue experience to use
in recovering
Catherine's
stuff.........I think
they ended up using Elliot's fishing pole to get the
camera out.
9. The yellow bus broke
down half way up
timberline road on
Friday morning.
10. Tim Feeney was sent to the "bus
store" to buy another
used bus Friday
afternoon........no,
it's not blue.
11. There was INSANE
WIND on the mountain on
Wednesday. It just
never let up. We were
getting pelted with tiny
little ice chunks flying
across the glacier all
day long..........doing
video in those
conditions was
challenging, to say the
least.
12. The Wednesday wind
resulted in John Rust's back-pack
fiasco.........at the
end of the day, as the
coaches were putting
gates away and packing
up the top of lane 4,
the wind suddenly took
Rust's backpack for a
ride down the
snowfield.......John had his skis on, and as
he pivoted around to ski
down the hill to rescue
his bag, his binding toe
piece came off the ski!
It was classic stuff!
His backpack was gaining
speed.......salt bag
style.......and as it
got down the hill about
50 yards, his video
camera came out of the
backpack and it was
going down the lane at
high speed in a slightly
different
direction..........quickly
everything was gone out
of sight.........3 of us
went down to the bottom
of the lane looking for
his stuff, but it was
gone...............luckily
some of John's adult
campers were able to
track his stuff down and
recover his
stuff.....camera still
intact!
13. As mentioned in the
last update, Head skis
is a new MHSSC sponsor.
They have sort of a demo
tent set up near the
volleyball
court.....kids can demo
skis and
snowboards..........
14. Friday weather was
not ideal.........rain,
fog, mist.........palmer
was closed, but they ran
the magic mile for
freeskiing drills
only........I'd estimate
about 20% of our kids
decided to
ski............they
eventually took kids to
the mall for a movie.
(see photo of rain
soaked coaches at the
top of the magic mile)
15. The new COHO lodge opens TODAY! Mike has been burning the
candle at both ends as
camp was in full swing
plus dealing with the
construction of the new
lodge. A full report on
the new lodge next
week's update.
16. We have some new
staff come on board this
last week.......
17. And while you are
there, some of the
staffers have
youtube.com links when
you click on their
photos: Go click on the
following peoples
photos: Feeney, Bill Whalley,
Terry McLeod, Andrej,
Emily Sampson, Spencer
Raymond, & Lorry
Brenner.
which youtube did you
like the best? send
comments my way.......
18. Tonight is the 30th
anniversary at Charlies
Bar.......or it's
Charlie's
birthday..........or
something like that. I
didn't get the full
scoop on the exact theme
of tonight's
celebration. I won't be
there, but I'll try and
get a report from
party-goers.
19. World cup winner Andrej Jerman is here now coaching for
3 sessions. I watched
on Friday as some female
campers posed with him
for photos.......photos
that will be worth
millions $$
someday........
20. If you remember
last week's update, I
mentioned my fortune
cookie that said "you
will be called upon to
help a friend in
trouble".........well
I still haven't done
anything worthy of
helping out a
friend.......so it's
still in my future.
21. we had a camper do
"the worm" and
breakdance all over the
dining room floor a
couple of times last
session. I only saw him
do the worm.......but
others told me he spun
on his head. He looked
like a mini Peter
Frampton (70's rock star
for you young people who
never heard of
him)........that's all
for this
week............
Session 4, 2007 update
Good evening,
This past winter
I asked Mike if he would buy
a digital camera
so I could
upgrade the
photos on the
camp website.
He said "follow
me"......and
he lead me to
the lost and
found box from
last
summer.......it
had a nice
little canon
digital camera
in there. Last
session I took
about a hundred
photos.........a
dozen or so of
those pics
are attached to
this email for
your viewing
pleasure. I
like the bus
meeting pic with
all the smiling
faces and the
catherine goggle
photos the
best. A few
photo
explanations: Irene Slisky bought me the
"grow-a-mermaid"..........just
add water!
It's the 3rd
such just-add-water
product Irene has sent me over
the last decade
or
so........those
half naked
campers out next
to the highway
were soliciting
honks from cars
and
trucks...........with
much success.
Anyway, here are
a few things
that happened
during session
4:
1. Bill Whalley broke my 5 year
winning streak
in H-O-R-S-E. Bill made some tough
shots, took the
early lead, and
then put me away
with a shot over
the backboard
that I couldn't
match.
Congratulations Bill.
2. Newbie coach Sean McKenna put a whole
rectangle of red
jello in his
mouth to "win" a
hug from Emily Sampson.
3. On Tuesday's
rafting trip, Andrej's raft got caught
in the eddy
(sp?) just after
the oak springs
rapid.....Andrej's boat taco'd (is
that a real
word?) and he
ended up
downriver
hanging onto a
rock while some
of his campers
were still
stranded on the
raft and unable
to get out of
the eddy........Jason
Hey,
who was driving
the shuttle van,
jumped into the
boat from the
shore (without a
life jacket) and
saved the day.
4. We ran out
of toilet paper
at Parham (staff
condo).........I
won't mention
names, but some
of the guys were
shitting then
showering.....and
one person got
desperate and
used coffee
filters as a TP
substitute.......(sorry,
no pics)
5. The
coaches took a
road trip after
the Wednesday
picnic to
portland in a
camp bus to go
see
"STOMP".......bus
driver was Emily Sampson.
6. Two-tone van
is
DEAD! Counselor Mallory
Hale was the last
person to
officially
drive two-tone
before the oil
spill was
smearing up the
Timberline
parking lot on
Friday
morning........ In Spencer
Raymond's words: We held a
memorial
ceremony last
night at the
bonfire. The
whole camp
showed up. We
all told stories
about our
beloved van. A
camper even read
his own eulogy.
Some young
campers made a
card for two
tone. I sang a
song and
everyone cheered
"Hail 2-Tone."
7. Mike Syrovatka skied a slalom
course for the
first time since
"before
my son Mark was
born"..........I
think Mark is 18 years old,
so it's been
THAT long. I
sort of
challenged Mike to a
slalom race on
friday morning
before the kids
on the hill.
There were two
slalom's set
up........not
dual......but
they were side
by
side......mostly
just back and
forth with a
hairpin or
two.........anyway,
it was a good
event. Since I
was skiing next
to Mike,
I couldn't
really see his
technique, but I
heard he skied
pretty old
school
technique.......pre
shaped skis
technique. The
coaches at the
top said there
was lots of
skidding going
on with both of
us........anyway,
since it wasn't
really a dual
course, there
was no official
winner.
8. Lots of
former mhssc
staffers working
different camps
the last week or
so.......such as Craig Bowden,
Tommy Eckfeldt,
Dave Kerwynn,
Josee Lacasse,
Brandon
Dyksterhouse,
Hiro Taniguchi,
Florjan, Uros,
Brien Seim, Jon
O'Brien.........I
probably forgot
a few........
9. Now that I
have a decent
digital camera,
I've been
upgrading photos
on the camp
website.......if
you have time on
your hands, go
check the ski
race page, mogul
page, snowboard
freestyle
page.........plus
the staff page
is constantly
being updated
with the newbie
employees that
are rolling
in each week as
camp grows and
grows........we
had 138 campers
last
week.......almost
180 this coming
week.
10. oh
yeah, almost
forgot.......the
new lodge opened
up! The finish
work is not
complete, but
it's prepared
enough for camp
purposes. I
think it sleeps
about 45
people? pics
of the new "coho"
lodge in a
future
email........
11. Other stuff
happened..........stuff
that can't be
mentioned in
this
newsletter..........classified
stuff. An update from Emily Longfield: I graduated in
December, then
spent the first
part of the
winter in Alta,
Utah, then I
went to work at
a flyfishing
lodge in central
Patagonia, Chile
(right when it
started to dump
in the Wasatch,
of course). When
I got back, Jake
(my boyfriend)
and I got a
response from an
audition video
we sent into
CBS's The
Amazing Race.
After much
discussion and
correspondence
with the
casters, the
producers
decided to pass
on us, saying we
"didn't fit the
(Barbie & Ken)
mold". Maybe I
should consider
getting a boob
job? I spent the
latter part of
the Spring
road-tripping
and in Hood
River, and I am
now in Juneau,
Alaska for the
summer working
for a restaurant
that sits on the
water where I
have seen a
whale pass by a
frisbee-throw
away. Things are
fantastic, and I
am debating my
August plans:
Mt. Hood,
Alaska, or
somewhere
tropical? Dave Curran wrote me today
to say there is
a rumor going
around that I am
getting
married?? While
the guy is
great, yes... I
am DEFINITELY
NOT getting
married anytime
soon.
it's past my
bedtime.........Robin
Session 5, 2007 update
Hello mhssc staffers, Here's your session 5 update:
Mike started out the session by
giving his sunday orientation
meeting to the 178 campers from
above the crowd on the new
manlift.......see pic......
BREAKING NEWS
MHSSC Employee of the month
for JUNE, 2007 goes to coach Emily Sampson. Spencer Raymond was a close 2nd
place........Mark
Stegall,
and Evan Mikkelson tied for 3rd in the
voting. Also receiving
votes: Riley, Alex, Nolan, Jason
Hey, Roger, Chad, Allison,
Tim Silver, Mallory, Jay
Panther, Stu, Liz, Mike
Syrovatka, Bill Whalley,
Terry (he worked session 1), Rogan,
and Kevin Malone.
This long list tells me that
lots of employees are
stepping up and doing a good
job. Congrats Emily
and everybody else!
1. some girl camper was so
happy to get her lost
luggage back from the
airline that she was hugging
her luggage on Monday
morning during breakfast.
2. a significant storm
dropped some new snow on the
mountain on Sunday
night........the moguls were
pretty much gone and the
gates and boxes were buried
at the top of lanes 4-5
3. new video guy Dan Meece dislocated his shoulder in
the terrain park.........he
got his arm back in within a
minute and was able to
return to work the next day.
4. After the picnic, many
of the coaches met up at
"the shack" for a night of
Karaoke (sp?) and
shuffleboard........see
pics.
5. Counselor Emily Broome got the nerve up to try the
Leap of faith feature on the
challenge course. Fear
took over as she was
standing up on the platform
for several
minutes..........the soccer
field below had a group of
campers playing ultimate
frisbee.......anyway, the
frisbee group stopped the
game and all started
chanting "jump,
jump, jump, jump"
.........Emily finally jumped!
6. Emily Sampson put Andrej and Tommy's skis in the girls bathroom
during friday's "stand-by"
in the WyEast day lodge.
Andrej didn't hesitate even
a second before walking in
there to get his
skis...........I can't
remember how Tommy ended up
getting his skis back. I
think he sent a girl in
there to get them.
7. newbie coach Sean McKenna bought a Toyota Turcell for
$350 cash. Last I heard, it
was overheating........
8. Bob Robicsek sprained his ankle while
running in the soccer
field.........major
swelling! He did manage to
get his foot into his ski
boot the next day.
9. Evan Mikkelson and Jon Winslow both celebrated their 20th
birthday on Thursday. And Colleen Pruss had her birthday yesterday.
10. Courtney Vermass just got a new job as
marketing associate with
Atomic skis......congrats
Courtney!
11. Eva Gonzalez is closing on her new house
purchase in Hood River!
congrats Eva!
12. Stratton Moguls and
Franconia took a rafting
trip down the White Salmon River in
Washington State......across
from Hood River. Jason Hey said there is a 10 foot
waterfall section.......and "it was the best day ever!"
13. Emily made it to the final round
of knockout at the picnic
for the first time ever
Wednesday. (I'm not sure
which Emily......I got this
info 2nd hand from Spencer)
14. We had shitty weather
on friday.......the lifts
were open, but only 9 kids
chose to get a lift ticket
(8 freeride snowboarders and
1 ski racer from Mike Syrovatka's group)........the rest of
the kids went to the mall or
paintballing with Fritz.
15. Bill Whalley caught a snake and twirled
it around in his hand.
42. shameless self
promotion.......it's my birthday on monday.........if
you are of age, join me at
Charlies @9pm for a
beverage. I don't give in
to peer pressure, so don't
even think that I'll get
plastered on a school
night.......... Robin
Session 6, 2007 update
Good morning, Here are a few things that happened during
session 6 plus 15 or so photos........
1. Add Jay Panther to the staff injured list. Somehow Jay landed on his wrist when he jumped off the
tabletop jump. His ski edge cut deep into his
wrist, severing 2 ligaments that affect his
thumb movement. Jay has already had
surgery and is in the process of healing,
followed by rehab. He'll be back coaching this
week........but minus the use of one hand. see
pics
2. Tory Amorello had
a 4 year old camper in her group........actually
the 4 year old only lasted one run before it was
decided palmer snowfield wasn't the right place
for her.
3. Kaylee Porter went on 3 extended hospital runs this
week...........at one point, she ended up in an
employees area in one of the hospitals where
someone thought she was a surgeon...........
4. Mike gave Fritzy $300
to go to Washington state to buy "real"
fireworks on the 4th of July........then he
presented a 30 minute firework display to all
the campers up on the mhssc soccer field. They
don't sell anything beyond sparklers and smoke
bombs in the state of Oregon.
5. Some campers claim to have bought "moldy
chocolate" at CJ's Chevron gas
station........and when they tried to return it
for a refund, they got denied..........they
considered making signs and protesting outside
the store (see pics)...........they also
considered catching a bunch of butterflies and
letting them go inside the store as a way of
getting even..........neither one of these ideas
came to fruition. (see pic)
6. Tom Sell was spotted on the hill this week. He's
coaching the US development team
7. Mike Annett was skiing GS on Friday
8. Butterflies are filling the skies on
Palmer again. Not as thick as last
year........yet. For you newbies that weren't
around in 2006, you can watch the Portland TV
news story on the butterfly invasion here.
9. For you race coaches, you can watch the
alpine race coach 6 minute training video here: http://www.mthood.com/staff_training.htm
10. Also for you newbies, maybe you didn't know
that there is a MHSSC staff facebook group
page.........feel free to join. Here's the
link: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2261481583
It has 71 members and growing!
11. Yesterday was Courtney
Vermass's birthday! woo hoo! I think she is 23.
12. Florjan spent the night on the mountain in a tent and
climbed to the summit before coming back down to
coach the next day.
13. Eric Price was here coaching with team Franconia session
5.........they went rafting on the white salmon
river (I think I mentioned this last
week).........anyway, Eric sent me some great
pics of the waterfall...........
14. Also some older photos that Evan Mikkelson sent me from their hike up to Crater rock........
15. Robin's movie
recommendation: Al Gore's "An
inconvenient truth"..........the
documentary about global warming. Good stuff.
Hopefully the palmer snowfield won't melt for a
few more centuries.
16. Lift lines were short this week: High
Cascade and Windells took the 4th of July week
off, which makes a big difference. And as of
Friday, we could no longer ski all the way to
the parking lot at the end of the
day.........that last section of snow in the
canyon has officially melted. It's about a 5
minute walk right now.
17. This coming week, the camp picnic will be
on Thursday.......make a note of it.
18. trying to get to #20
19. Jay Belanger built a bike track to the right of the
trampolines
20. I had a "mud slide" on my birthday at
Charlies........it was delicious. Thanks for
all the b-day messages via email, facebook, the
cake, the b-day card, chocolate milk, etc.
July 11, 2007 update
mhssc'ers.........a quick little
mid-week camp
update...........butterflies have
taken over the palmer
snowfield...........run for your
lives!
Session 7, 2007 update
Hi kids, We are officially half-way thru
summer '07. 7 weeks down, 7 to go.
There are signs of burn-out and a good
chunk of the staff are battling
cold-like symptoms. If I had a dime for
everytime a staff member told me "I'm
tired", I'd have..............ok, I
wouldn't be rich, but I'd have a few
bucks..........I really don't have too
much to write about this week, but here
are a few nuggets:
1. John
Rust crashed while skiing for the "first
time in 10 years".
He was doing a drill demo for his group
during his big crash..........his group
followed suit by all crashing in the
same spot......as if that was the actual
drill.
2. Snowboard magazine hosted a party at
Charlies on Tuesday night........free
Coors light keg courtesy of snowboard
magazine.....
3. Dan
Meece and Ian
Cary found roughly $138 cash blowing across
the parking lot near summit ski area.
SCORE!
4. Jay
Balenger was added to the staff injured list this
week. He took a header while riding his
bike down alpine trail (Timberline down
to Govy trail)..........all captured on
his helmet cam. Jay suffered a
cut up chin that required several
stitches. He also suffered a
concussion...........he was able to dust
himself off and continue his
ride........he crashed again..........he
doesn't even remember the 2nd crash. He
says he'll get his helmet cam footage
on youtube.com, so stay tuned for
that.
5. There was a brief thunderstorm on
Friday morning, delaying the chairlifts
for about an hour. (see pic of
cool-looking sky)..........
6. My butterfly pics that I sent out
mid-week, ended up on 2 Portland TV news
stations.........and then they went
National on the weather
channel.......famous flying insects!
7. pain on palmer has over 5,000 views now........... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAJRky4lFwg
8. Emily's van dance is up to 87 views: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayPwvBN1_Jo
9. Bill is up to 200 views: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTRxHRnzDO0&NR=1
10. Rogan sent me a youtube link of Kyle
Darling tubing down the clackamas river (6 views
so far):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeW4IuLKPM0
11. Heat wave last week..........there
are some rocks sticking up in lanes
7-14..........
Here are a few messages from former
staffers:
From Dan
Tsai: hope you're
all enjoying the summer out at hood.
sad i can't be there. i just graduated
from college, and spent the past month
traveling around in China... i'm heading
off to peru on saturday for 10 days. say
hi to everyone for me. i miss you all.
From Jeff
Moore: Please tell fritz to shoot off a mortar
for me. I am having MHSSC withdrawl...
i've locked myself in my bedroom and I'm
constantly crying. well not really. tell all I said "yo". J-Mo
from Chris
Cota: Just a
quick note to say that the Cota compound was visited today by Mr. Tom North and his son Wilder. There
were beers, burgers, and other good
eats. Lots of story telling and
picture viewing. Great to see them.
We even got in a quick phone call to
our buddy Joe Reis. Good
fun...........we hope to see them
back here again in the great white
north very soon. The place was
overrun by kid types....we have
4.........our other friends have 5,
and Tom showed up with 1, though he
has three. Buy Joe
Reis a nice 3 dollar cigar when you
see him. Take care, Best
regards to Mike and Lynne
From Joe
Reis who sent the photo (see attachment) of bbq
prep at a 1985 camp picnic:
The back of this picture reads:"Stefan, Holly and Vance instructing
Joe on the proper techniques of
charcoal lighting" MHSSC Summer 1985
- Karen
PS from Vance "Joe passed with a
moderate aptitude for charcoal
lighting, but later moved on to
bigger and better things"
From Ryan Enfield:I'm working in New Zealand on Mt. Ruapehu coaching a competitive freestyle program for Turoa ski resort. The upper Mt. has finally opened. We were stuck on a poma lift/ rope tow for a week or indoors. We were supposed to have a foam pit to practice inverts into, but we couldn't get into it and one of my athletes (a 14 year old girl) who was learning back flips under rotated one to her head on a 2 inch pad. We were filming it (she was almost landing them before the incident) and when her mom saw the tape she busted up laughing. Well there's lots more going on here, but we're 19 hours in the future, so while it's noon on Sunday for you, it's 7am on Monday for me.Cheers! Ryan
stay tuned next week, same bat time, same bat channel for session 8 update.
Session 8, 2007 update
Hey! Rain and fog in July? We
had both of those things last
week. Somehow we only missed
one day on the hill where the
kids did the bowling/movies
thing. Here are a few nuggets
from last week, plus some former
staff updates.......#4 is gross
and sophomoric.......if you
can't handle gross, skip
#4......you've been warned, so
no complaining!
1. There is a black bear in the
Govy
neighborhood.........tipping
over trash cans and going inside
peoples homes (Bob Vial's house)
looking for food. Go here: http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_071607_news_bear_government_camp.80d8986a.html be sure to watch the video.
2. I wasn't there, but the
staffers staying at Parham
(staff house) said there were 2
crazy local guys yelling and
screaming threats against "race
coaches" in the middle of the
night last Saturday night on the
main drag in Govy. Enough to
warrant a call to 9-1-1.
3. Kids in Courtney Vermass' ski
group got in a fight, and one
kid ended up with a chipped
tooth.
4. Ok, here it is, number 4 (or
should this have been
#2?)...........some camper shit
his pants during trampoline
(afternoon activity)......yeah,
kinda gross..........but I bet
73% of you are
laughing.......(sorry no pics)
5. More Courtney Vermass stuff........she's writing
on-line articles for freeski and
powder online
magazines........here are a
couple links:
http://www.powdermag.com/features/onlineexclusive/windells07-2/
http://freeskier.com/freeskier/news.php?news_id=1117
She plans on writing an
on-line article about mhssc
freeski coach Nolan Willard............way
cool!
6. From Eric Price: Sampsonites van dance reminds me
of my days as staff and getting
camp burnout! Remember the
night at Baumgarners when
Jonathan and I did the Hans and
Frans skit. Or some of the
crazy nights at Brazil. I think
she is in stage 2 of Staff
Burnout. I think it is time for
a nice big fire and bender at
old bitches Grave ! I think that
would release some bulit up
staff pressure. Make sure they
have the proper footwear if they
are going to jumpin the fire and
do a fire dance!The picture of
Snow bunny brought back VIVID
memories of my summer of killing
squirrels and mice. $5 each. I
had alot of BEER Money. Hey ,
on another note my wife gave
birth on Wed the 11th , 7/11/07
. It is kid of catchy. Healthy
Baby girl 10 lbs, 21.1 inches
long. Makenna Riley Price.
Things here are good but a
little tiresome. Eric (see
photo of Eric and new baby girl)
7. Jeff Moore sent me this youtube link with
this disclaimer: you might have already seen
this, but I am crying. i can't
stop watching it.
: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2iiNVICfjg
8. Terry McLeod update: Halfway
through summer, eh? I guess that
means I'm halfway through also.
Things are getting marginally
better for me, mainly based on
the facts that I know more of
how things work and that I've
got some of the bigger building
type projects finished. the
schedule is still pretty hectic;
I've only ridden my bike on days
off and I don't really get much
down time. The past two weeks
we've had nearly 200 campers and
we have about 90 staff. The
campers are directly supervised
100% of the time which I think
is a little overkill but it
sounds nice to the parents. I'll try to get you some
pictures of my creative sunburn
from week one (sunscreen here is
for more than just "on my
face"), and from my successful
"two-man bobsled in a shopping
cart behind the ski boat" run.
Every Friday we do a water show
featuring talented and unique
performances on the water. The
highlights include backflips on
wakeboards and bellyflops from
high places (and shopping cart
skiing). Tell everyone hi and
that their job is easier than at
other summer camps. Tell Grant I
expect to see him here for
Singles camp at the end of
summer.
9. From Trumbull Barrett (he worked at camp a long ass
time ago): Thanks for the happy birthday.
For some reason I always think
back to my 21st birthday we celebrated
in Govy with Johnny O. I don't
remember much except the surprise on the
bartender's face (was his name
Sean?) at Charlie's when I told
him it was my 21st birthday
after having been a loyal patron
for several years. After that
things get blurry.
I love the updates from MHSSC by
the way...
So what I'm up to is moving to
Boston from my home in western
Mass to live with my girlfriend
of many years. I'm going to
continue doing tree work there,
if you want to see some snaps of
us in action check out www.barretttreeservice.com and you'll see what we do. The
dude in most of the pictures is me. As for
skiing I don't do too much
except for Tuesday night beer
league racing and maybe a week's
vacation every year. Beer league
is awesome,
racing under the lights is
underrated. Later Trumbo
#10. Smith Rocks camp is this
coming week...........John
Rust, Joe Reis and Evan Mikkelson are taking 8 or so campers for a
week of climbing at world famous
smith rocks in central oregon.......... http://www.mthood.com/smith.htm
#11. Tim Feeney got in a classic phone
discussion (argument?) with an
adult coming to camp in
august.......this adult could
not accept the statement from Feeney that we will have
enough snow in
August..........supposedly this
adult guy got 2nd hand
information from his Aspen buddy
that all the snow would be
melted by
then.........anyway, I'm glad Feeney is one answering the
phone most of the time to deal
with crazy know-it-all adults.
for you old
timers.........that's Mark Archer in one of the photos......he's
back in Govy running a small ski
shop called "speedy's".......Hey Julie Janus,
Archer wants you to make some
signs with arrows on them......And
former staffer from the late
80's early 90's?Ara
Papazian (see pic) was on palmer this
week training, and I think he
raced in the masters race
(summer fun nationals) this
weekend. So there you have it. I hope
this rain stops soon. Session 9 is "nice camp"..........everyone
be nice to each other this
week! Robin
Session 9, 2007 update
Hi all, I just added
about a 15 or so
staffers (past and
present) to this MHSSC
staff email updates
newsletter list, so I
welcome the new people!
If you don't want to
received this camp email
newsletter in the
future, just let me
know, and I'll nuke
you. This list is up to
219 names.......growing
by the week!
Here's
some stuff that happened
during session 9:
1. Session 9 was "nice
camp"..........I
think this was the 3rd
year we've had a "nice
camp" session. Speaking
of nice........Emily
Sampson was nice enough to offer her
chapstick to Olympic
Gold Medalist Ted Ligety (see
photo)..........Emily's
chapstick will now be
auctioned off on ebay
and will be sure to make
her an instant
millionaire.
2. A week or two ago, I
mentioned the black bear
roaming the govy
neighborhoods......anyway,
the bear made an
appearance at Bloomquist
(staff condo) and the
guys (Ryan
Anderson/Rick Millett)
grabbed the camera and
got some good footage
which you can see on
youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-TZkXHx-wE
(about 2 minutes long)I
also contacted KGW
newsstation and they
used this footage on
yesterday's newscast
which you can see here: http://www.kgw.com/video/video-index.html?nvid=162624
(about 20 seconds long)
3. I watched Mike Syrovatka make it 2/3 the way
across the long
slack-line........he has
mad balance skilz! (my
personal record is
only one step thus
far).......and then I
lost a $1 bet with Bill Whalley.......I
bet him that he couldn't
make it across the
shorty slack line
without falling in 5
attempts.......he did it
in one attempt.
4. John Rust, Joe Reis,
and counselor Evan Mikkelson took a group of 10
campers to Smith Rocks
for rockclimbing camp.
I heard they were a
great group of kids and
they were climbing until
it was dark each day.
They road tripped to
Frenchies Dome for a
climbing session on
Wednesday, and then
joined the rest of us at
Wildwood park for the
camp picnic before
heading back to Smith
Rocks.
5. Mike Annett made 3 free throws in a
row at the camp
picnic........he was
bricking left and right
until his mad skilz came
together for 3 magical
swishes!
6. I forgot to mention
in the session 8 update
that Polly Hopkins carried 4 bags of salt
down the
hill.........she's
wicked strong!
7. The snowpack is
holding in there. Lanes
1-5 are rock-free. The
mogul lane has a few
rocks sticking
up.............and lanes
7-14 have rocks at the
top...........The walk
from the end of the snow
in mile-canyon to the
parking lot is about 6
minutes.......I watched
some kid kick his ski
boot thru the dirt for
about 40 yards down the
mountain because he
didn't want to pick it
up.........quite funny!
8. Tim Feeney and Colleen Pruss had a water-fight in the
kitchen.
9. Mike always talks about the
benefits of sunscreen at
the orientation
meeting........we'll one
kid must have not been
listening because he was
blistered big time. In
so much pain, he was
crying.
10. I didn't get the
whole story, but the
"cool bus" ("school"
with a few letters
blacked out) caught on
fire during a drive up
highway 26. Counselor Dave Curran captured some video of
the billowing smoke on
his cell phone.
11. Wednesday is the
new counselor day
off..........some of the
coaches take over the
bus driving duties to
and from the hill, as
well as to and from the
picnic.
12. Former staffer Shawna Riley made a guest appearance
in Portland this
weekend. I took her to
the Oregon beer
fest........(see pic of
her with Jimi Hendrix).
She's on a month+ long
camping/road trip.
Great beer, but really
long lines. Shawna says "hi" to all.
13. Ted Ligety did an autograph session at Fuxi's ski shop. Scott Veenis was also signing a few things for kids (hey, he was the 2006 NCAA GS champ and all)..........and helping Ted promote his new "shred" goggle line. http://www.mthood.com/shred.htm Darren Owen produced the new shred t-shirts.
14. Pete Deisroth is here coaching one of his new athletes from Canada. (see pic)
15. Grant Wilson............I haven't mentioned his name for a long time.......it's long overdue.......let me say it again: "Grant Wilson".......(see photo of him and his guitar with Dave Curran and Mallory Hale.
that's all folks..........Robin
Session 10, 2007 update
Good afternoon people of MHSSC!
Nothing too earth shattering
happened during session 10. The
bridge collapse in Minnesota had
some MHSSC connections. First
of all, we had some campers from
MN that were worried about their
family members.......as far as I
know, none of the campers family
or friends were involved in the
accident. And former MHSSC
coach Maria Schilling had crossed that bridge a number
of times that same day.
In Maria's own words: So I
am sure you heard about the
bridge collapse here in Mpls.
Ironically, I have
been living at a friend's house
(Martina Sailer, Erich Sailer's daughter) for the past week
as my floors are getting sanded
at my house. Martina
lives about 2 blocks from the
bridge, so I am right by it. The
bridge includes an exit that is
the main way to get "home" right
now. Anyway, last night we could
smell the smoke and dust from
her house..it was pretty
intense. I actually drove over
the bridge at least 4 times
yesterday (around 4:30pm!) and
ran under it (on an out-and-back
run) 2 times yesterday morning.
Anyway, it was pretty crazy and
there were thousands of people
roaming around the bridge last
night (and today) to see the
damage. I'd say the traffic
down here has increased at least
4-fold in 20 hours. There are
lots of helicopters over
head...hard to fall asleep last
night there were so many. Years
ago. I used to have nightmares
that Mt. Hood was going to blow
up....I guess this has been very
similar. Anyway, I
thought I'd fill you in on some
of this...please tell everyone
hi and that I miss them!! Maybe
Ill come again next year...
Here are a few events that took
place session 10:
1. The black bear that was
roaming thru Govy looking for
food, was euthanized. http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_073007_news_bear_killed.c7727fc7.html
Snowboard videographer Ryan Anderson,
who shot the bear footage, was
interviewed by KGW news for the
11pm news. (I never saw the
newscast......past my bedtime)
2. A salt bag that got dropped
on palmer and going downhill at
rapid speed, was saved by Kyle Darling..........he
dove on it and saved the people
below from certain death.
3. Some coach, who's name I
cannot mention, forgot his ski
boots in Govy on his first day
of work.
4. Polly
Hopkins put her shorts on backwards by
mistake.........
5. Dave Curran and Julia Shand took a vow of silence on the
hill on Thursday. They used
non-verbal communication to get
their thoughts across.
6. Fuxi came to MHSSC on Thursday and
did some selling and raffling to
the campers.
7. Mike Annett skied several slalom courses on
Thursday. He can still get it
done!
8. Grant Wilson paid all the little kids in Sage Dunham's ski group $1 per day to "whine
and complain".........it was
pretty funny. Things like "this
sucks"........."can we eat
lunch?" (at
9:15am)..........."can I go down
now?" (at 9:16am)..........and
one little girl said to me: "you're
pathetic",
and skied off.
9. Counselors went surfing on
Wednesday.......the new
counselor day off each session.
10. A little kid in Emily Sampson's group ate 3 snowcones in one
trip to the snowcone booth.
11. John Rust pulled a prank on the kids while
they were eating lunch at the
top of the lane........he saved
a brownie from the picnic,
rolled it into the shape of a
dog shit.......layed it on the
snow.........then said out loud
something to the effect of "OMIGOD,
some dog took a crap right
here"......then he picked it up
with his hand, sniffed it, then
took a bite.......it was
reported that one little girl
was so grossed out that she
cried. For you caddyshack fans,
you might relate this to the
baby ruth pool scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqMBmfIpbpM
12. Tim Feeney told me that a concerned mother
pulled his kid from camp because
she feared her kid "might" get
injured. WOW!
13. I didn't see it, but
"sources" told me that
counselor Evan
Mikkelson climbed up the walls of the
lodge and also climbed the
fireplace....barefoot!.....he
has mad rockclimbing skilz!
14. Add counselor Brian Gudolawicz to the staff injured list.
Brian injured his knee in an
absolutely amazing slalom crash
that was just feet away from
myself and Eva Gonzalez.
I was handing Eva her
video-tape, when Brian was shredding the
course........he did this crazy
head-over-heals hook tip flip
thing right above us, and one of
his skies sailed over Eva and my
heads..........(see pic of Brian
in the ski patrol
sled)........We had an
orthopedic surgeon adult camper
who came and checked his knee
out on the hill and her
diagnoses was ACL tear.......but
then at the Welches doctor's
office, they said "no
significant damage"........Brian flies home tomorrow to get a 3rd
opinion with the results of the
MRI.
15. Somebody TP'd Sean McKenna's car.
16. K-staffer Bill Toney was involved in a multi-car
minor accident on highway 26,
near Welches last sunday. see
photo of Bill talking to the cop
to get his version of events.
Not camp related, but in case you missed the skateboard wreck on ESPN, here's a link: (not for the squeamish) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvZq8TDHa6Q
BREAKING NEWS
Mt Hood Summer Ski Camps
EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH for July,
2007 goes to K-staffer Michelle Schmitt.
In Elliot Halverson's words: "she
killed it in the kitchen". Taking 2nd place in the voting
was counselor Evan Mikkelson.
3rd place was counselor Liz Edmunds. Other's receiving votes: Kevin Malone, Bill Whalley,
Allison Higginbotham, Jason Hey,
Julia Shand, Alex Andrews, Sean
McKenna, Jay Balenger, Rick
Millett, Kyle Darling, Kaylee
Porter, Mike Syrovatka, Kelsey
Baran, Polly Hopkins, Tim
Feeney, Sean Decker, Elliot
Halverson, Eva Gonzalez, and
Luke Wendel.
This from Liz Edmunds: i
voted for sean decker for employee of the month....all
the campers i talked to
said that they LOVED him...that
he was ALWAYS paying attention
to them in the
park and never working on things
for himself....he would modestly
do demos for the kids, not to
show off, but just showing them
a very simple trick to work on
(not simple to them,..but very
basic for
him)....they ALL loved him. he
also ALWAYS helped unload the
trailer when we got down from
the hill and always asked me how
he could help with things at
camp. YAY SEAN! :)
For you late 80's, early 90's
people, former mhssc coach Tom Wirth had a baby girl last week (well
his wife did anyways)......baby
girl named "Taylor" (see
attached photo).
from Chelsea Stamer: tell
everyone i say hello and that i
miss them!!!
From Eric Price: I came
up with the Stages
of Staff Burnout! Feel free to
add to them. Some of the later
ones were my memories of my
burnout.
Stage 1 - Sluggish / tired,
still feel pretty good!
Stage 2- still tired /now stir
crazy( tends to dance
spontaneuosly)
Stage 3 - more tired, becoming
delusinal I'll take wed off
That should Help!
Stage 4- exhaustion setting in
/ angry pissed off daily, maybe
I will take 2 days
off! Screw special projects!
Stage 5 - Denial I 'm fine
could't be better! I don't need
any days off, Give me more Work
Mike!
Satge 6 -Totality Lost all sense
of reality -absolutely loves it
out here in
Govy ! I don't want to leave!
that's all for this week. 4 more weeks to go............the staff is thinning out, the snowfield is shrinking by the day, and the demo shops are selling their inventory. The end is in sight.
.........as we were downloading the magic mile chairlift today at around 12:30pm, we noticed some thick black smoke coming from the west end of Govy.......no, the mt hood inn didn't burn down.....turns out it was a bus. I snapped the photo (see attachment) on my way down the highway......
Session 11, 2007 update
Good evening,
I really don't have
much, but here's a few
nuggets from last
session:
1. I threatened Bill Whalley with a napkin holder in
jest......I did a
pretend throw of the
napkin holder in Bill's
direction, when 3/4 of
the napkin holder broke
off from the other
1/4 and actually came
very close to taking his
head, his laptop
computer, and his glass
of coke out.......but it
missed everything and
hit the
ground.........sorry for
that whole napkin
throwing incident Bill!
2. more Robin violence: at the camp
picnic, the softball
went underneath the
backstop fence during
the camp softball game.
I grabbed the ball, and
attempted to toss it
back over the backstop
to the pitcher.......but
the ball it the top of
the fence, came down and
hit a camper in the
head, then the ball
ricocheted into another
kid's mouth.....making
him bleed...........not
one of my better moves!
3. Vomit was a somewhat
frequent event last week
as a handful of campers
blew chunks in their
dorm rooms.........yeah,
this week's blog is
pretty negative so far,
eh?
4. The palmer chairlift
broke down on Tuesday
morning........for over
an hour........the lift
line at the bottom of
Palmer was quite long at
8:11am. (see photo)
5. Jason Hey came up with the idea
that the coaches should
boot ski down from the
top of Palmer to
mid-station on
friday......the snow was
particularly firm that
morning.......anyway, Jason, Sean McKenna, Carter,
Emily,
and Eva all made it down in once
piece........the ski
patrol gave the girls a
somewhat negative
response to this
"stunt"..........the
speed award has to go to
Carter
Casner...........That
was the fastest boot
skiing I've ever seen in
my entire life. He even
caught air off the first
bump. They went so
fast, I didn't have time
to get my camera out of
the case before they all
went by me.
6. Jon O'Brien was on the glacier this
week, coaching some of
his athletes in the
mogul lane (see pic)
7. Former staffer Jared McCrum (see photo) was on the hill for a day of snowboarding. After 3 knee surgeries he doesn't go big anymore, but he can still rip it pretty good. He's engaged to be married.........
For you locals who might care, Timberline is building a new chairlift on the lower mountain:http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/stories/index.ssf?/base/metro_east_news/118584694067310.xml&coll=7
Not camp related, but I thought I'd share a little about my weekend.........I went to Tacoma to shoot a wedding video last night. You may have seen wedding scenes on "America's funniest home videos" where somebody faints during the ceremony? sample here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXICUklm4QQ ........well anyway, I got to witness this first hand.....one of the groomsmen fainted and took a tumble right at the end when the bride was saying her vows during ring exchange. It was kinda scary. The bride was frantically calling out for a doctor.......and people were rushing to the stage.....he was fine.......just a little dehydrated......and very embarrassed. And then during the reception, I set up a camera that guests can come up and leave a personal wedding greeting for the newlyweds........and this mafia type guy gave my camcorder the most classic godfather type message.....he said: "if you mess with my family, I'll Fucking kill you".........he was pretty drunk, and he was telling me about the bad choices he made in his life and how I should not do the things that he does....and then he flashed me this thick stack of $100 bills in his suit pocket.........scary dude.......and he threatened me that I need to leave his complete message in the wedding video. I'm not the editor for this one, so I hope I'm off the hook.
Session 12 coming up is dedicated to Bill Whalley. This is Bill's last week for maybe forever........next summer, his optometry classes run during summer term, so he will likely have to end his mhssc career. Bill, I promise to not throw napkin holders at your head this week. And Terry McLeod, who semi-retired from mhssc employment a couple months back, might make a guest appearance on the hill mid-week if the weather looks favorable.........I won't be there, but there's an 80's party at Charlies tonight (sunday).........see photo of the flyer......I imagine Tim Feeney will be in attendance.
Enjoy this week's photos..........and if you haven't checked out the camp website blog lately, there's some pics there too, including a photo of Grant Wilson ripping up the slalom course: http://www.mthood.com/session_blogs.htm
Session 12, 2007 update
Good morning everybody! We
had 60 campers at camp this
past week, but it seemed
more like 30-40. Most of
the other commercial camps
on the snowfield have packed
up and gone home, so it's
pretty quiet up there these
days. It was so slow on the
glacier that I had time to
make a snowman (see pic) Here
are a few nuggets from last
week.
1. Carter Casner went to the High Cascade
Snowboard Camp end of year
sale.........came away with
some snow-pants for $1. He
looked in the pants pocket
and found $35 cash!
score! Net gain: $34 plus
some nice pants.
2. Terry McLeod came for a 3 day visit this
week. He skied on the lanes
and in the terrain parks.
3. Also on the hill this
week were former staffers Craig Bowden, Kevin McDevitt,
Tommy Eckfeldt, Tyler what's his face, and that
one guy who's name escapes
me right now.
4. Some random camper from
the Tichy camp was trying to
call her coach on one of OUR
camp radios by
mistake...........it was
kinda funny listening to
this girl shout into the
radio
"MARTIN".........."MARTIN,
ARE YOU THERE?" "MARTIN,
WHY WON'T YOU ANSWER?"
5. I saw 3 elk on the
Timberline road early
Tuesday morning. They
didn't stick around long
enough for me to get a
camera out. Big suckers.
You don't want to hit one of
those in your car.
6. Also saw a frog on my
picnic jog, and a bunny
rabbit. (yeah, I'm kinda
short on material this week,
sorry)
7. Mike & Lynne went fishing with their 2
grandkids, Sierra and Simon (see pics......Sierra
fishing, and Simon wrestling Kaylee for the squirt gun)
8. Kaylee Porter failed her CDL test because
she reduced the fractions
from 4/32 to 1/8. Or
something like that. I
guess the testers were not
fraction capable.
9. I beat Sam Bingham in a game of HORSE on
friday. His game has
potential.
10. Brian Gudolawicz medical
update: I
had my Dr. appt monday and
the result is i re-tore my
MCL and strained my ACL. I
will be skiing this season
but I will not be ready to
ski until the snow starts
falling on the east coast.
Hope everything is good at
Hood.
For you locals, Sunset high
school in Beaverton, is
looking for a ski team
coach. If interested,
reply back and I'll give you
the contact info. The chairlifts open at 8am
the rest of the summer, so
we get a little relief on
our morning sleep these next
2 sessions. (thank John Rust for that one)
KEES NEDERHAND: August 14, 2007 marked the 5
year anniversary of the
passing of camper Kees Nederhand.
I put together a web page
with a few photos and some
other stuff. Please take a
look when you get a chance: http://www.mthood.com/kees.htm
Session 13, 2007 update
Good morning, Summer is
quickly winding down. The
kids are now gone, and we
wrap up summer camp with the
adults only session.
There's still plenty of snow
on upper palmer. Enough
snow, in fact, for
Timberline to declare that
fall training will happen
this year starting in
mid-September (lift
operation Friday-Sundays)
Here's what happened last
week:
1. Mike used the help of a little
kid to run the camp
orientation meeting this
week (see photo). This kid
covered the big 3 topics:
Rocks, sunscreen, and water.
(see photo)
2. We got rained out on
Monday. We didn't even do
the customary drive to
Timberline, sit in the lodge
until 9am thing........we
just called it done and took
the kids caving at Mt Adams
followed by movies at Lloyd
Center Mall. Kids didn't
get back to the lodge for
dinner until 8:45pm. Some
of the staff came back
raving about the movie "superbad". http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/superbad/
3. At the camp picnic, kids
cooked watermelon on the
grills..........and two
little girls performed a
watermelon funeral.....(see
photo of watermelon burial)
4. Bill Toney and Dave Curran filled in as temporary guest
coaches on the hill this
week. Both did an
outstanding job.
5. Elliot Halverson took 10 runs on Thursday.
He said he took less runs
this summer than he had
trips to Charlies.
(Elliot's Charlies visits final tally:
46).........
6. Kevin Malone broke his ski.......see
photo
7. I caught a chipmunk in
the catch-and-release trap
on Wednesday.......as I was
pulling the trap out from
under the TV stand in the
basement, I accidentally
opened the trap door about
an inch, and it was just
enough space for the
chipmunk to escape and run
mock speed out of there and
escape.
8. The annual Hood-to-Coast
relay running event was on
Friday. The Timberline
parking lot was pretty much
jam packed full by 8:00am.
9. I randomly discovered
this classic MHSSC video on
youtube, recorded from the
big skateboard halfpipe: http://youtube.com/watch?v=PqlOZiXK3k8
10. A woman saw me urinate
during a quick potty break
while on my picnic jog at
wildwood park.
11. Tim Feeney celebrated his 29th birthday
on Thursday. He had a nice
dinner at Timberline in the
cascade dining room followed
by a visit to Charlies. Feeney is claiming that
this is his last summer
working at MHSSC. Do you
believe him? I
want to hear YOUR prediction
on Tim Feeney's camp fate.
12. Mike and Lynne took a 4 day mini-trip to
Sunriver, Oregon to play in
a tennis tournament.
13. I found a 30G Ipod.........score!
It has over 4000 rap songs
on it..........I don't do
rap.
14. We hired a one-week
counselor, Michael Bachkanji due to a lack of staff.
Local guy from Portland
area......former
camper-staff. He filled in
nicely.
15. Carter Casner was growing a beard this
week.
16. Give that girl some coffee! Eva Gonzalez had some coffee on friday morning before work. She single-handedly raised the excitement level about 3 notches for the morning course setting/salting. I wish I had her on video.
Looking for a ski race
coaching job? Mark Wedeking is looking for coaches at
Bogus Basin in Idaho.
contact info: http://www.bbsra.com/staff_mark.htm
Craig Bowden sent me this youtube classic
about Charlie the unicorn:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q5im0Ssyyus
It has over 12 million
views. Take a look.
Vote now for MHSSC AUGUST 2007 Employee of the Month! For those of you still working at camp this final week, I'll take your employee of the vote in person. But the rest of you guys that worked in August this year but have since gone home, please email me your vote. Who do you think deserves your vote for MHSSC August 2007 employee of the month? VOTE NOW! Don't hesitate! Don't even read your next email until you've voted. If you didn't work in August, 2007, you cannot vote..........winner to be announced next week. Can't think of who to vote for? You can jog your memory by clicking here: http://www.mthood.com/staff.htm that's all folks
Session 14, 2007 update
GAME OVER!
That's right, summer '07 is
in the books. Vacation
time. woo hoo! The last
day of camp I was asked at
least a half dozen times, what are you going to do
when camp is over? We'll (if you care) after
making a few DVD's for MHSSC
campers, I'll be catching a
Portland Beavers baseball
game (triple A), will have
some dinner with my family,
then will head to the Oregon
coast for 3-4 days to
vacation myself........after
that, I'll be hitting up a
b-day party and then
the annual Sausage Fest in
Vancouver, Washington (food,
beer and music)........But
enough about
me........here's a few
noteworthy nuggets from the
last session of the summer:
1. A giant cooler filled
with ice and beer was in the
middle of the lodge dining
room all week. (see
photo).........the adult
campers were good about
re-stocking it......I think
there were at least a dozen
left-over beers at the end
of camp.
2. We were short handed
(staff wise) for rafting on
Tuesday.......Tim
Feeney had to walk from Maupin to
Harpham (sp?) Flats (the
rafting put-in location), to
recover one of the vans to
do the shuttle. Feeney
said the few cars that did
drive by, were not willing
to pick him up.|
3. Fuxi did a raffle at the top of
the lane.........he raffled
off goggles, lip balm,
socks, ski poles,
sunglasses.........(see
photo)
4. The Oregonian newspaper
came up and took a few
photos on our last ski
day for the newspaper (see
photo)......they were posted
on the front page of the
metro section in Saturday's
paper. (see photo)
Lynne made an appearance at the picnic! rare event (see photo).......she said "put that in your newsletter"
6. Southpark characters and then Frankenstein and Co. made appearances on the hill the last couple of days (see photos)
7. Mark Stegall and Rick Millett took their adult snowboard
campers to the oregon coast
for an evening surf
session.......they did this
AFTER they snowboarded all
day.........last day of the
year. Heard they got home
around 1:15am
8. Rick Millett did the triple event in one
day: snowboarding,
skateboarding, and surfing.
impressive!
9. Rainer Hertrich is a local guy that has
skied roughly 1400 days in a
row (a guinness world
record) He's the guy
wearing a fishing hat with a
mustache in one of the
attached photos. Somewhat
recent article about him and
his streak here: http://www.summitdaily.com/article/20070613/SPORTS/70613015
10. Roger Bay carried a Christmas tree up
to the top of the chair on
the last day. The tree was
used in a photo shoot
earlier in the week.
11. Darren Owen was sicker then a dog all
week....but still managed to
get himself to the hill each
day to shovel the jump and
coach his adults.
A few random stats from
Summer 2007:
**Feeney went to Charlies 39 times
this summer
**Bill
Whalley ate 40 mhssc cookies this
summer
**Polly
Hopkins ate ZERO mhssc cookies this
summer
**Darren
Owen skied down the mile canyon
every day this summer except
the one time when he
downloaded with his mom, who
was here for a visit last
week (see photo)
**Sean McKenna sold his infamous Toyota Tercel.....in McKenna's words: I just thought I'd give you a little update on my $350 Tercel. Three weeks ago I set off from Government Camp in the old girl bound for Salt Lake City. She purred like a kitten all the way there and I was cruising at 85-90mph. after a few days in Utah I set out for Vail, Colorado via a 2 day white water rafting trip and a tour of Moab and Arches National Park. I hung out in Colorado for a week and am now back in Park City. The Tercel, or "Sprout" as Scotty nicknamed her ran beautifully the entire way. I put 4700 miles on it since I bought it in June bringing the grand total to 254,700 and only put about $50 into her. Unfortunately I have some bad news and Sprout is no longer in my possession. I posted an ad on craigslist and sold the car for $700 this morning! Not a bad little profit for a 24 year old car. I just wanted to keep you and all of Sprout's fans up to date. (see photo from crater lake)
Will Tim Feeney come back to work at mhssc
next summer???.......a
couple of predictions:
*from Bill Whalley: My prediction for Tim is
that he will be back in OR
by May, just in time to work
another summer.
*from Chris Cota: I
predict that Feeney, like
Robin, WILL NEVER LEAVE!!!!
BREAKING NEWS:
MHSSC Employee of the month
for August 2007 goes to Bill Toney (kitchen staff)! woo hoo!
Bill wins $75 (courtesy of
uncle Mike).......2nd place
went to Kevin Malone (one vote shy of tying
Bill)......and tying for 3rd
place in the voting were Rasta Nate (head digger), Scotty Veenis (coach), and Julia Shand (counselor). Also receiving
votes: Darren Owen, Fritz, Rick
Millett, Evan Mikkelson, Stu
Halverson, Luke Wendel, Alex
Andrews, Sage Dunham,
and Carter Casner. There
was an email vote casted for Jay Panther,
but the person who voted has
not worked at camp since
about mid-July......and this
from former head coach Tom Sell: I vote for the chipmunks.
they do an awesome job
cleaning up after the
campers
enjoy this weeks'
photos......
September 13, 2007 update
Hi all, I know how
you all miss reading
the mhssc camp staff
updates, so I
thought I'd toss out
a quickie update
about camp and a few
people associated
with camp.
1. Things are still
happening at the
lodge. The cleaning
girl Tabitha,
has been coming up
to clean the
camp vans and busses
as well as clean the
lodges, so they are
ready for the next
time guests come to
stay there. And
Govy local handyman
helper guy Robert has been a regular,
helping Mike do some
outside
stuff..........I
think he's painting
Coho Lodge.
2. Fall skiing at
Timberline has been
postponed until new
snow covers the
ground. You can
read all about it
here: http://www.timberlinelodge.com/current_news/091107_fallupdate.php
3. Mark Stegall and Rick Millett are back at camp
after enjoying a
mini-vacation in
Idaho. Rick and
Mark are helping put
stuff away, &
getting the rails
and boxes down the
hill and stored away
for the winter.
4. The camp office
was moved from the
trailer back to room
209 in the main
lodge (Chinook
lodge).............exciting
stuff eh?
5. Michelle Annett (Mike & Lynne's
youngest daughter)
hosted a labor day
weekend tennis
tournament on the
camp clay tennis
court.
6. There is still
leftover beer in the
fridge (bud light)
that the adult
campers didn't
consume.
7. Rick Millett has a legitimate
email address
now.......he's like
a kid in a candy
store, all excited
about receiving
emails and sending
emails.........if
you want his new
email address, let
me know.
8. Jay
Panther update: Everything is going
great for me in Park
City. I live with
three of my best
friends and the
training is going
really well. I am
leaving for
Switzerland in about a month, then
I go to Colorado,
and then Selections
in early December.
So I am just
enjoying being at
home and having a
normal routine for a
while.
9. Long time adult
camper Violet Anderson won the mt hood
meadows "rename the
yellow chairlift"
contest. The new
name is "Stadium".
She won a 10-time
ski pass at
Meadows. woo hoo!
10. John Rust is in Europe for the
Saas Fee adult ski
camp. I think the
camp starts
tomorrow, but he
went oversees a week
early to get in a
little vacation. In John's words: Great trip so far
the weather has been
outstanding. Heidi Gama and her husband Dan
the ski maker and I climbed a huge
peak in the Eastern
part of Switzerland
- tough mixed snow
conditions over rock
- Heidi climbed
really well for a
relative rookie and
kicked our asses on
the hiking part. We
stayed in a hut that
was nearly 12,000
feet high just a
little below the top
of the summit -
where you can order
a beer and have a
hot meal. I hope
the weather holds
for the skiing camp
coming up - maybe
we'll get really
lucky.
11. Great story
from Emily Sampson: So, I'm a junior
advisor this year on
a freshman floor, in
charge of 10 first years
making sure they
don't drink
themselves to death.
I have four boys
that are the bomb
and they called me
tonight asking me
where i was. Not
being in my room, I
told them that.
They were like, okay
we have something to
show you so call us
when you get back to
the dorm. So, I did
and they were all
covert about
whatever they were
going to show me,
telling me to close
my door and make
sure i was in my
room. So they knock
on my door and I
look out and there
are three
of them in winter
coats, with hats on,
holding gatorade
bottles dancing to
britney spears. It
took me a couple of
seconds to realize
they found my van
dance on youtube.
Apparently the
little buggers
googled me and that
youtube came up, and
they watched and
planned the whole
stunt for an HOUR!
Then some girl
yelled at them for
waking her up.
That's supposed to
be my job. Just
thought I'd tell you
that I might have a
few more views,
close to 200. Hope
you're enjoying
vaca.
Emily's youtube
video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayPwvBN1_Jo
or just google her
name and you'll find
the link.....it's #2
on the google list.
12. Robin update: I had an
excellent trip to
the Oregon coast
last week. I got to
relax and not think
about ski boots or
video tape for a few
days. Two
intoxicated younger
married chicks were
hitting on me at the
bar and buying me
drinks..........so
that was a highlight
worth mentioning.
I also went and saw
"Superbad".........funny
stuff! If you
liked "the
40 year old virgin"
then I think you'll
enjoy this movie.
Only 36 more weeks until session 1. Robin
October 1, 2007 update
Hi all! It's been a few weeks since the
last mhssc update.............but I have
a few things to write about and some
photos, so here you go.
1. Spencer Raymond sent me this: Look what Nolan, Malone and Stu are up to!
http://www.montage-inc.com/trailer.php After
you watch the "The
F in Life"
trailer, you can click on preorder,
and follow instructions on how to
order your own copy of their movie.
Only $15 bucks! ($12 plus shipping)
Help these guys out, and get their
movie! The trailer looked great!
2. It's snowing here in the pacific
northwest: http://www.timberlinelodge.com/ski_ride/conditions_webcam.php
3. John
Rust is back from adult ski camp at Saas Fee,
Switzerland. In John's words: The weather has been more than perfect -
I've never had 20 days of perfect anywhere except Hood. There are
some crowds but the training has been
good. There has been national teams from Switzerland, Sweden,
Germany, Czech Republic, Croatia, Janie
says Montenegro (2 skiers) Where's
Montenegro? Lichenstein, Serbia,
Slovenia Juniors, Norway, Finland, and a
bunch of local kids that are so
obnoxious that they'll walk right over a
world cup winners skies to take cuts in
line in front of them. The food is
great I've gained 25 pounds - all fat.
4. Tommy
Eckfeldt, Craig
Bowden,
and Dave
Kerwynn are all in Chile coaching their Rowmark
Athletes. In Tommy's words: Here are a couple pics of the camp so
far. We have a day off tomorrow and we
are headed down to Santiago! After this
day off and we run a 3 day block of GS
and SL and we are back in Salt Lake.
5. Polly
Hopkins is working/living in Salt Lake City this
year. She told me she got a job within
3 days of moving there. She's working
at a newspaper doing design.
6. Met up with Darren Owen, Bill
Whalley and Emily
Longfield yesterday for lunch at Hooters! Emily says she missed camp this year, and she
is headed to Utah to work at Alta this
winter.
6. After doing a little internet
stalking, I was able to track down 4
more ex-mhssc staffers. So I welcome
the following people to this silly
little email newsletter:
**Nancy
Schmeler: So for the last 15 years or so I have
been in Canada, since
I graduated from Clarkson. I worked in
the oil industry (Esso & Sunoco) as a manager
for 13 or so years and more recently I
worked as a consultant to Exxon's
Canadian affilient on the Real Estate
side. Recently I started my own business www.JustDuckyYongeKids.com , which is now 6 months old.
It's a kid's entertainment facility, we
have an indoor playground and have kids
classes and summer camps. I live in
Toronto with my husband Deane of 5 years
and have 2 little girls Stephanie (3.5)
and Charlotte (2.5)**Alex and Amy
McNees (Amy Van Valkenburg): Alex is living in Oakland these
days. Amy is married with 3
little girls (ages 3, 1, and 6 months),
living in Redmond, WA.
**Sue
Gauss: I am an assistant professor of Latin
American history at the University at Albany. I've been here since about
2003, after I finished my PhD. I'm
married with one son (two years old).
These days, most of my time is spent
with family and work, though I am
looking forward to getting Diego Luca
(my son) on skis soon.
All 4 of them worked at camp in the
80's........mid to late 80's.
I have more internet stalking to do. What ever happened to Bob Geyer? Dr. Love? Mike Elvidge? Brian Flanagan? Lynn Gibson? Evan Griffing? Liz Hazel? Steve Lawrence? Shasta Lawrence? Nancy Lopez? Dahvid? Mike Meagher? Martin Metz? Matt Mitchell? PJ Moberly? Todd Sherbacow? Bristol Sorensen? Terri _______ (Bristol's friend from BYU) Glenn Virball? Michelle ________ (BYU) ?, Matt from 1986, and Phil Bachules (sp?) from the 80's? Anyone know where these people are? Mike Attolico?
Here are Robin's youtube pics of the
week: If you are an "office space" fan,
you'll like this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PX7bVcPw94
Fun with chipmunks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BNqYra1CJQ
Boogie nights meets star wars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9bKAZDRi4o
kid plays a video game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M3i1mOtP--U
So that's all I have. I'm headed to
MHSSC tomorrow to do some office
work.........anyone need their mail
forwarded to a specific address? Or
their stashed skis put in the burn
pile? Anyone want a free washer and
dryer? Mike is ridding the lodge of
those 2 old dryers and 1 washing machine
that have been collecting dust in the
lodge basement since the lodge opened in
the 90's. I think these were the
original machines that were at snow
bunny lodge........and they still work!
(I think)..........Robin
p.s. this newsletter list is up to
about 225 people........
one last
thing.......this from Jeff
Moore: WaHsatch Powder Productions doesn't have
a web site, but we're working on our
next film which will be called "Highway
210". It should highlight the deepest
powder in Alta from the past 3 years,
including Mt Hood footage and our trip
to Switzerland. We also took top honors
at the Cold Smoke Awards in Bozeman last
year. The video is
on youtube... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nns4GbZtOZE
check out the other 9 videos from
wahpowprod. I like the cream pie videos.
Jeff
October 23, 2007 update
MHSSC'ers, Here's a mini mhssc update. The blue bus is officially GONE! Mike gave
it to a scrapper. It had been sitting
on Mike & Lynne's home property the last
few years ever since the Deschutes river
"incident"......The blue bus had been
sold to ex-staffer Craig
Bowden for $1 dollar, but he had nowhere to
park it. Craig had intended to drive it
to "burning-man" someday. So anyway,
it's gone forever. Today a guy Mike hired, set up his own
little mini lumber mill in the MHSSC
lodge parking lot. They are taking
downed trees (Douglas Fir) from the camp
property and cutting them up and will
use the wood for the new flooring of the
Coho Lodge. (see photo).
Mt Hood got some new snow last week. Enough snow for Timberline to reopen for fall skiing on Palmer on the weekends. I think we even have a few Fall campers coming in to train with John Rust these next couple of weekends. (see photo of the new snow)
Andrej Jerman sent me this: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2gbho_decathlon_fun
Eric Baldwin is thinking about organizing a MHSSC
staff reunion..........stay tuned for
details. Eric last worked at camp 10
years ago, and he thought it was time
for a reunion. Summer 2008 will be the
30 year anniversary of camp! 99 people
have joined the MHSSC staff facebook.com
group. Who will be #100? Even old guy Joe
Reis is a facebook member!
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2261481583
If any of you guys live in the fire zone in CA, stay safe! Happy Halloween........Robin
October 25, 2007 update
Hi all,
some very sad news to report. Mike
Kalamar, a MHSSC camper the last
couple of years, has past away. Colleen Pruss and Joe Sulpizio sent me the messages below......for
those of you on facebook, you can see
the links in Joe's message to 2
different memorial facebook websites.
hey robin,
yesterday oct 24th, 2007 mike kalamar
was found dead in his bedroom by his
mother. he was a ridge ski racer and a
senior as well. he was the kid who broke
his leg out at camp this year. he was
also a good friend of mine. if you can
send out an email asking people to keep
im in their minds, pray for him and his
family that would be a great help. also,
if you can ask if people will wear blue
on nov 14th, his birthday, and blue was
his favorite color that would be great.
this is a hard time for me and for the
ridge ski team with the loose of a great
friend and team mate. if you have any
words of comfort or anything that would
be great. take care!
-colleen-
Robin,
I don't know if you've heard already but
yesterday, Mike Kalamar, a MHSSC
camper, passed away. I just thought I'd
let you know so maybe you could put
something in the next staff e-mail.
http://desales.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5911372251&ref=mf
http://desales.facebook.com/event.php?eid=5624648879&ref=mf
-Joe
November 22, 2007 update
Happy Thanksgiving from Mt Hood! May
your day be filled with turkey,
stuffing, and pumpkin pie..........If
you are not from the United States, you
may not celebrate Thanksgiving......It's
an American holiday that celebrates the
time when Pilgrims and Native Americans
became friends, shared harvest, and came
together for the first ever ski camp on
the Palmer snowfield..........Today is
the last ski day for Thanksgiving ski
camp. John
Rust is coaching the 6 campers this week up
on Palmer. We had some sketchy weather
this week and some other elements that
made this week more than challenging for
our small crew, and the 6 campers. Mike and Lynne (and daughter Michelle and her hubby Travis) are currently
vacationing in Brazil, 6 time zones
away. So Rust, Robert,
the utility man, Tabitha the cleaning lady, and myself have been
holding down the fort while they are
south of the equator.
In John Rust's words describing Thanksgiving camp: Here's a quick camp update. Weather Saturday and Sunday - similar to the storm that washed the roads out last year. Sunday we went caving on Adams - the last 15 miles had a decent amount of snow 10 inches - when we came out from the cave 3 hours later there was over 18 inches. The van worked great but the snow was up to the bumper. 5 miles from the cave there was a tree across the road - 2 feet across on the big end and the skinny end was stuck between two trees. The kids learned how to use a van like a skidder and using the climbing rope (luckily we went to the cave that needs one) we move the tree enough (breaking the climbing rope twice in the process) to pass the van around the tree. Monday we cat skied on Palmer in challenging conditions but everyone had fun and enjoyed the experience - T-Line was VERY nice to entertain us - I probably would have said get lost, Monday -perfect weather but they were unable to open the upper lifts - we spent the day on the beginner Bruno chairlift - BRUTAL to say the least. Today great weather and we trained SL - tomorrow hopefully nice and GS.
So as you can see, it was a challenging week: They lost a day to bad weather, they cat skied in a whiteout one day, they did drills on the Bruno chairlift that had 5-10 minute lift lines for a day (that's that tiny two-lift-tower chairlift you see from the parking lot), and they finished up with 2 days on Palmer with clear, but windy weather. Darren Owen brought 3 mogul athletes with him for 2 days, but because of the forementioned stuff, they only got in one day on Palmer. They thought about packing out the tubing hill at camp and building a jump, but it just wasn't steep enough.....but they did do a little sledding instead (see pics) Terry McLeod also came down for a PSIA clinic last weekend but it ended up as classroom sessions only because of the stormy weather. I've been reading on facebook.com that Tim Feeney started his new job in Washington DC a couple weeks ago. Here are a couple of Tim Feeney's "facebook wall" posts: **November 14: I've gone to work 2 days now, I have my own desk, their setting up my computer. I can't say I've done any work yet though and no one is trying to teach me anything yet. I've got full health insurance now and will start looking for my knee surgeon. **November 17: all last week I just hung around waiting for someone to tell me to do something but that never happened. To top it all off in the first 10 days I'm being paid for, I've got two paid holidays.
Liz Edmonds update: school is really good, its really busy...im actually thinking of switching my major from religion and designing my own major on human rights. im going to bhutan this spring too! i'm leaving january 30th and ill be back may 16th. i'm so excited! its a vajrayana buddhist kingdom (thats tantric buddhism) and everything in the country is kept in line with the religion. i'll be camping a lot and trekking in the himalayas...i'm SO excited.
this is a
bit dated, but Mark
Stegall was in San Diego area during all those
So. Cal fires: You've heard
it from a realtor before...location, location, location. Lucky to say my
buddy has a good one,
near the sea with no chapparal filled
canyons nearby. At one
point yesterday we were under a
voluntary
evacuation but that was lifted as the
wind began to change.
At it's closest the fires got about 5
miles away. It
is the Witch fire that threatened us.
Now this
thing is'nt over yet but it seems we're
out of the hot
zone for now. There is one problem spot
that could
still cause us problems. Very
surreal experience. Twilight all day for
the past 2 days.
Only smoke and ash here at the coast.
Wouldn't want to
have respiratory ailments and be here. Remember
the fire at meadows last year, it was a little
smoky, multiply that by 1000x and you
get the idea. Of
course the surf has been excellent,
offshore winds hold the
waves up and hollow them out. I've seen
lots of
barrels, unusual here. No
crowds in the lineup, but there are
surfers out. I went out
for an hour or so mon. and tues. You
have to take it
easy when paddling so as to keep your
breathing mellow. You don't want to
breath hard. Ash falling
in the lineup. Amazing
job by the fire crews, they may not be stopping
the fires but they are saving a LOT. It
looks like two
of the fires may go all the way to the
sea where
there are brush filled canyons. Well I
better go get my surf in for today, I've
got my things
ready to toss in my truck if we get the
order to
leave. I'll update you later, nothing to
film from here but
smoke, I'm ok with that. Later, Mark
Also Mark
has his snowboard team website up and
running: www.teamnorthtahoe.com
Troy Grace was also in the fire zone: There mostly contained with tons of hot spots. Unfortunately we suppose to have more Santa Ana winds this weekend which blows wind off shore and gets really hot. Not good sounds like they are more prepared if there is such a thing. My inlaws got evacuated out of the San Diego area. They said were they live they thought it was worse because of the news. I drove to palm springs from San Diego this weekend going by alot of the aftermath the fires from my view were very spotty showing were the winds made the fire jump around alot what a pain in the ass. The clean up for alot of people is terrible. My wifes cousin had to shoot at some looters trying to crash through there neighbors front gate. Wow Troy
So that's about it from here in sunny northwest. Happy Thanksgiving! Robin
Here are a few pics from the lodge........ravens enjoy the waffles too!
December 13, 2007 update
Hi all,
Here's the latest from good ol' Mt Hood
Summer Ski Camps...........Mike and Lynne have been in
Brazil on vacation for almost a month now.
They get back tomorrow. While they were
away we tried to hold the fort down, but it
wasn't always easy. During one 11 day
stretch, we lost internet connection for the
office computers. After a series of
attempts to fix it over a week and half's
time, John Rust went to
radio shack and bought a new DSL
cable.......fixed it right up! All those
office incoming and outgoing emails were
stuck in limbo for 11 days.......not the
greatest scenario for a business!
Last weekend we had about 80 lodge guests..........a big church group (50 or so people) and the Aloha/Southridge high school ski team (30ish)........It was a bit bizarre to have a church group doing alter calls and religious functions in the dining room, while at the same time the high school ski team was in the basement huddled around the big TV on the white couch watching "superbad". To add to the mix, the water in the lodge stopped working. So try to imagine 80 people in one building, and you couldn't flush a toilet. I kept thinking of the New Orleans superdome during Hurricane Katrina when all the toilets filled up with.....well, poop! This was not a good situation. It was 10 o'clock at night, no running water, and 80 people who eventually have to use a toilet, wash their hands, get a drink of water, etc. What would YOU do? Mike was 6 time zones away in Brazil. 4am in his world. So what do you do to a guy on vacation at 4am? YOU CALL HIM ON THE PHONE! After 3 phone call attempts, Mike finally wakes up and answers his phone........I told him the situation, and he knew exactly what to do. He talked me thru step by step on how to make the back-up water system work......it was something like this: "turn off the spigot, get a couple of pipe wrenches, take off the end of the pipe, hook up the white hose from the blue tank, flip the switch on the white box until you see the little red light come on, then open the spigot on the blue tank"......It took several minutes but we were able to get the water flowing again by 11pm.....whew! There could have been lots of yellow snow that night........and maybe some brown snow too! eww!
next story: For those of you that have ever slept in the camp lodge by yourself, you know it's kinda scary! Well anyway, I was up there a couple weeks ago, spent the night solo, and this car breaks down right out front of the lodge. It's pouring rain, pitch dark, and I see the "person" try to get their car started.....unsuccessfully......I'm really hoping I don't have to deal with this scary person in the dark, who most likely is a serial killer..........I see this person walk over the gas station and use the pay phone.....so I'm hoping they are calling a tow truck and they'll eventually go away........I kept watching and watching....for like 2 hours........no tow truck ever shows..........I of course lock all the doors to the lodge.....(yes, I'm a wimp).........eventually I just go to bed.......next day, car is still there. And now I see the person walking toward the lodge..........turns out this person was an attractive 26 year old single female. Not some scary guy with a knife. Anyway, I let her in the lodge, fed her some cereal and let her hang out all day until her relative came and rescued her.............she had slept in her car all night. So the moral of the story is: don't be scared of a 26 year old attractive female! She was too young for me anyway.........right?
Michelle Schmitt and Caitlin Laman have been helping cook the meals at the lodge. And I believe Elliot Halverson showed up yesterday to help out at the lodge for a couple weeks. Also Fritzy is moving to Govy and plans to be a ski instructor (I think?). Winter camp session 1 starts tomorrow. The snowpack is marginal. The new chairlift opened at Timberline......they say it's the longest chairlift in the state of Oregon. It doesn't add to the summer skiing mix, so most of you will never ride it anyway. But it is long. Bill Whalley has a giant mustache. Go check out his facebook page. Jennifer Annett Bard and her hubby and kids came and stayed at the lodge for a weekend. You can see some of their sledding pics on the lodges website: http://www.mthood.com/lodges_index.htm
Rust sent me this: Bode Miller's new training methods now that he left the U.S. ski team: http://www.skispace.com/bodevideo/
check out the old school mhssc photo Joe Reis sent me Joe's description: Found this today. This is taken up at in the cinder cone on a mid-session Friday. The kids with Vance and I are Harvey (next to Vance) and Paul. Can't remember their last names but Lynn probably will. They both came to camp for years during the 80's. Paul had a sister named Audrey. (Great memory - too bad I can't remember what I am supposed to be doing today) Christ I just realized these kids are now in their mid-30's! Joe
Robin's
youtube video picks of the week:
1. American Idol guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLF9iEXnBRo
2. best wedding dance ever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VV7pEut1LLY
3. credit card problems? watch this one: http://danwho.net/mp/index.php?id=snl_dontbuystuff
that's all for now.......happy holidays! Robin
December 20, 2007 update
Happy Holidays!
BREAKING NEWS:
Darren Owen's athlete, Patrick Deneen, finished in
1st place in the U.S. selections mogul
competition on Dec. 17. 2nd place went to Jay Panther! Woo Hoo!
You can see the podium photo here: http://usfreestyle.blogspot.com/2007/12/us-selections-mogul-results.html
Brian Gudolawicz update: For some of those that have not forgot about my and my minor knee injury at the end of the summer, I am doing fine now. I still go to rehab here at Colby-Sawyer but I am back on snow and it is feeling great! I have my first race of the season at Waterville Valley NH this saturday so we will see how it hold up when i move to race intensity. I am very excited for this ski season and I hope everyone else is. It has already started out amazing. My dad told me the other weekend that he has not seen this much open(being Sunday River Maine) this early in the past twenty years. He is about to turn 59 and he is running around like a little kid in a candy store. Hope everything is well with you and your season goes great.
Late 80's MHSSC coach Tom North sent me 3 old
school MHSSC photos
Hi Robin,
I spent some time this past summer with Chris Cota and we dug up
some really OLD photos. The best are
attached! Merry Christmas!
Tom North
Pic 1 Bob Guyer at the
Oregon coast. We camped on the beach for the
weekend in the days when that was legal.
Pic 2 Can you name all those smiling faces?
Pic 3 Vance & me, circa
1988
If you have some old school MHSSC photos, send them my way. And If you know where Bob Geyer is, let me know! He's the one person that I get asked about the most, from the old school era.
Winter Session 2 camp update: We are in the middle of winter camp session 2. Mt Hood is getting hammered with new snow this week. Rust is coaching the ski racers, Mark Stegall has the snowboarders, and Elliot Halverson is pulling double duty coaching the 1 freeskier, and cooking all the meals. Elliot and Mark drove the 9 campers to portland last night for the Portland Trail Blazers home game at the Rose Garden arena. Blazers beat Toronto Raptors and the crowd went crazy. Fritzy moved to Govy this week from the east coast. He plans on being a ski instructor at Mt Hood Meadows. that's all for this week. Have a wonderful holiday season. Robin cressyvideo dot calm
December 28, 2007 update
MHSSC'ers!
BREAKING NEWS:
Former mhssc mogul coach Bridgette
Shipley is getting married! In
Bridgette's words: Super surprise... I was opening my
Christmas gift= an ugly purse....inside-- a
smaller box.....opened this box ... a ring
and then a Will you marry me on both
knees??? Then another box with a one of a
kind eternity bracelet from my favorite
designer- Alana Leigh. I guess she helped
him find the ring too. No date...still
surprised. We've been together for four
years and have owned our house together for
three....so I guess I forgot about the
marriage part.
Bridgette also sent me this youtube
link: http://youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4 and it's also Bridgette's birthday
today (Saturday)...........happy birthday!
Tim
Feeney told me that Andrej
Jerman won today's training run for
the Bormio men's world cup downhill. http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/12/28/sports/EU-SPT-SKI-ALP-WCup-Mens-Downhill-Training.php
Good luck Andrej!
Emily
Sampson and Jason Hey both took home the gold! In Emily's words: Last weekend (Dec. 23), J Hey and I were
in a race together. Not only did we both
have the best points (mine were better,
however) we both took home the gold. By over
a second each. We did some
serious advertising. Happy holidays
everyone!
Mt Hood is getting dumped on this week. Winter session 3 is in progress with a combination of ski racers and snowboarders..........John Rust and Mark Stegall are doing the coaching.......Elliot Halverson is handling the meals. Check out the attached photos........Mark set up a box at the lodge for some evening jibbing sessions. Michelle Annett is recovering from recent micro-fracture surgery on her knee.
Some sad news to report. A snowboarder was killed yesterday at Mt Hood Meadows. Apparently, the snowboarder ended up face down in a tree well in deep powder and suffocated. http://www.komotv.com/news/12909281.html
For Christmas I got a bunch of movie gift cards.........movie theater and blockbuster video.........Does anyone have any movie recommendations for me? I just watched "beer league"..........Horrible, horrible movie. I need help picking movies. The Portland Trail Blazers just won their 12th straight game........take that Lakers! happy new year Robin
