Wow

Today at Treble Cone we had some awesome visitors. The slalom and GS specialists from the Austrian men's World Cup ski team have been here for a couple of weeks, but today it got really interesting. Unannounced and totally without fanfare - no press, no fleet of vehicles, no fuss - the entire men's United States Ski Team showed up for some free skiing. They all booted up in the lodge among the tourists and the sizable number of young racers here for summer training. Olympic gold medalist Ted Ligety, World Championship medalist Erik Schlopy, Scott McCartney, Steve Nyman, and Jimmy Cochran all bought lunch in the cafeteria and skied on the same runs as the general public - and those are only the that guys I recognized. After a lot of watching the Austrians and hearing all sorts of technical ski conversations between coaches, athletes and technical representatives, all in German, it was absolutely a pleasure to have our guys out there, showing us just how good they are. They were friendly, chatty, and they rip.

I'm in the middle of teaching a five day program to a small group of guests. We spent some time this morning watching the US Ski Team ski, soaking it in. We simultaneously marveled at what the best in the world can do on skis and felt really good about the fact that skiing is such a small world and that what we do and what we're learning on skis is the same as them. Just not as good. I only wish that I'd had my camera.