NorAm Win!

So I am in a much better mood this time around writing!!! I just won my second NorAm!! Panorama has been good to me once again! Kelly McBroom took photos at awards which I will post soon! Until then I will shout out some thanks!!

THANK YOU:

Mom and Dad-I've put you through the ringer I know!

BC Alpine for letting me train with the guys all summer

Kelly, Bre, Mike, Joel, and everyone else who has been sending me great vibes via text the past few days!

Brandon Dyksterhouse (and Sean Frith) and Johnny Crichton for being awesome at coaching me!

Izzy HamptonStone of BrainTrain and Dave Freeze of Ripplerock Consulting for the great mind power!!!

Enough self indulgence...tomorrow back to work..really looking forward to the GS!

on to Panorama!

Well unfortunately I have no new photos to put up. Upon writing this I have realized that I have not been taking any photos of late! When you've been to the same places a few times the motivation to take photos dwindles!

At the Nor Ams in Colorado I had a mixed bag of results. I was 10th the first day of the Slalom I dnf'd second run the 2nd day after skiing the entire first run with my pole guard broken off. In the GS I was 14th and 15th consecutively. I felt good about my GS finishes because I definitely had some wobbles and mistakes during those finishes. Especially the second day...I stopped on the bottom flats! So I left Colorado with a mixed bag of emotions. Actually fairly happy with my results but also knowing that I could have done better.

After Colorado I got to go home for a week (wow! that never happens at this time of year!) I spent my first day lolling around..sort of.. then got straight to work training with the Sun Peaks Alpine Club and one of my favourite coaches ever John Crichton..who has just returned to the club after a 6 year stint with the Canadian Mens Tech Team...need I say more? I felt I skied really well and as always when skiing with positive coaches I feel really confident coming out of the week! Though somehow I did manage to get frostbite on all my toes at -2!!!

Yesterday my mom and I drove out to Panorama. Possible the worst drive ever! It started out with a 27cm dump of fresh, HEAVY snow at our place. We ended up digging for two hours to get our car out of the ditch before we could even leave! After that was accomplished we set out hoping to arrive in Panorama around 9 30pm....we ended up arriving at 2AM!!! The rogers pass was incredibly treacherous! It is best described by the sign which flashed "slick slippery sections, compact snow, limited visibility, blowing snow". We ended up going 50km/hr most of the way in a HUGE line of semi's. We even passed a snowplow newly in the ditch! At one point we were stopped for an hour waiting because a semi truck had jack knifed into the ditch and was blocking most of the road. Anyway wow was I happy to finally arrive in Panorama.

Today I trained three runs just to get my legs back after the drive. I watched my friends race SG. Congratulations to Madi McLeish and Kelly McBroom 1st and 3rd today! Always great to see Canadians on top!

I am hoping to forerun the slalom portion of the super combined tomorrow and start racing on Wednesday!

Ciao for now!

Welcome to the heartbreak hotel

After a good camp in Nakiska I headed down with the Canadian Team to Denver to start off the race season! After a night in Denver we drove to Loveland. As it is the US Thanksgiving weekend...they served Thanksgiving at the ski hill for lunch. Not my favourite thing before a world cup time trials! Our time trials were 4 runs...our best two runs combined time. I had a good first run followed by two not great runs. My fourth was again better. The result was heartbreaking...I missed qualifying for my first World Cup by .06 of a second. I am not sure I have been as heartbroken as yesterday afternoon since I dnf'd at Nor-Am finals (costing me a world cup spot for this year). It feels as if I cannot catch a break. No matter how badly I want it...no matter how confident I am feeling going into things...it doesnt seem to work out. I keep thinking..sometimes good things do happen...just not this time...again.

So I am regrouping for the Colorado Nor-Am series which starts the day after the Aspen World Cup. Wish me luck!

Now this looks like fun!

Fall training

Today I commenced fall training in Nakiska. I have been here for a few days already and the BC mens team had some car issues so are arriving tonight vs yesterday (as was planned) so today I skied with the Women's Alberta team. I did 4 warm up runs and 7 in the course...a pretty good first day volume wise! Tomorrow I will be joining the mens BC team for the rest of the week. On the 15th I will be meeting up with the rest of the National Tech Women when they return from Levi and will be training with them till the 23rd.

So far I'm having a great time here in Canmore...but hoping it will snow soon!

In parting here is a shot taken in Chile!

So after an amazing time at home my season will begin a little early this year. I am heading out a few days early to Canmore to hang out with some good friends of mine before commencing training in Nakiska on the 9th. I will be training in Nakiska until the 23rd so hopefully we have good weather and good conditions to make the most of the two weeks available!

Cheerio

ERT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2OMNyC_N5A

this is the link to my newest ski video. Skiing from Chile 2010! Enjoy!

Fall

Hi everyone...I have been a bad bad blogger!! Sorry about that! I am home now after a amazing three week camp in Chile. I have been to Chile 5 times now...I already have all the photos I need of Chile! I am really stoked on how I am skiing after this camp. Amazing how a little positive energy can go such a long way! It was alot of fun skiing with the BC team men and women. They have so much energy and enthusiasm for the sport! Ah pre-political skiing...love it!

After Chile I came home and completed physical testing and my ACT test(an entrance exam for US Universities). Feels good to have both of those out of the way! I feel really good about my results in both!

So now I am home. Enjoying fall to the max and spending A LOT of time in the gym. I have been helping out my local club at dryland which has been entertaining and again motivational. Amazing how many kids start in this sport....I feel so privileged to have made it this far! Not many do! My mom always like to compare my success to hockey "If you were a hockey player you'd be on the Olympic winning team or a star NHL player!!....you just chose a sport that is way harder to succeed at". This is true. On the Canadian Olympic Hockey team there were 23 athletes. In Alpine skiing 7 women went and 12 men. Our whole sport was represented by less people than one hockey team. Putting my career into perspective has really left me proud of my accomplishments and also so ready to take on the world. Seeing my teammate Marie-Michele Gagnon have success at the opening race in Soelden shows that our Canadian team is incredibly strong. We have so many good young athletes who will be starting either their first or second year on World Cup. I cannot wait to see how this season plays out.

As my prep season comes to an end and the race season looms large in front on me I feel relaxed, motivated, strong and I know I have done everything this summer that I could to give me the greatest chance at success this winter. What a great place to be in.

Cheers

Elli

New Zealand Retroactive...

Ok sorry about the late update! If you will believe it I am now in Chile!! I had 10 days at home where I was flat out working on our house and in the gym...it was controlled chaos! But I am getting ahead of myself!

The rest of my new zealand camp was good. I ended the camp feeling that I had a really good idea of what I needed to work on. Instead of going home straight away thought myself, Eve Routhier and Kelly McBroom took a little road trip!

We commenced our little journey from Christchurch and headed north to Hamner Springs. We had a quickie dinner then headed to the hot springs for a little relaxation after 4 weeks on snow. It was the perfect start to a couple hectic days of driving! The next day we drove from the Lewis Pass to Westport were we had a awesome lunch on the beach

Our humble little van!

The Beach in Westport

After a delicious/random lunch of hamburger, garlic bread and carrots we continued down the west coast. We visited a seal colony that was incredibly beautiful and it ws here that my team mate Eve learned to drive standard...on the wrong side of the road!

The Seal Colony

Around 4 pm we arrived at the "Pancake rocks and blowholes". It was incredible!

We were terrible tourists who went off the main track to discover "the real sites"! After walking around in awe at the pancake rocks we continued a little further to a deserted beach were we watched the sunset and drank kiwi wine.

After watching the sunset we climbed back into the van and continued down to Hokitika. The next morning we managed to find public showers (nothing better than being clean after a few days living in a van!). We continued down the coast past Franz Joesph and the Fox Glacier (we decided not to stop...we see enough glaciers). In the morning we had been told to visit a place called Okarita, a ten km detour off the main road, to see the "beautiful lagoon" and to possibly go kayaking. After navigating a treacherous windy road we arrived in Okarita....permanent population of 35!!! The lagoon looked like a dam that had dried out. After about ten minutes we turned around and left. We continued down the coast and decided to visit another place we had heard about called Monroe beach. The trail sign said a 1 30 hr round trip in and out to Monroe beach...it took us 15 minutes to run! Monroe beach was incredible. After running through jungle it was amazing to arrive at a deserted beach with perfect round pebbles. It was incredible sunny and we wandered the beach like explorers landing on a foreign shore after months at sea! We climbed, looked and pondered all the while being eaten by sandflies...but it was worth it!

Monroe Beach

After Monroe we continued down to Haast were we once again ate dinner and drank wine on the beach at sunset. Beautiful. After sunset we drove from Haast to Queenstown! We lived in Queenstown and had visited Wanaka before so it wasn't a vital area for us. The next day was Eve's birthday and she wanted to see Milford Sound...so we drove through the night!

The view from our campervan on Eve's Birthday morning!!

After we set out from Queenstown our drive was interrupted by a herd of sheep who came barrelling down the road towards us...we sat stunned and giggling in our van for I swear 10 minutes as sheep passed up! One of the cars passing the other way rolled down his window "It's ok if you're on vacation" haha apparently stampeding sheep is a regular NZ occurrence!

This was a photo taken about an hour from Milford sound...we had a personal joke during the drive were we bought a party pack of fake mustaches...the funniest part was when we forgot that we were wearing them and pulled into a gas station. We commenced filling the tank and the usual to do's without realizing how funny we looked! Epic!

We arrived in Milford Sound accompanied by torrential rain!!! We booked a tour of the sound on a small ferry. Rain couldn't get us down!

On board we celebrated Eve's birthday with a toast of white wine in the rain. After unloading from the boat we were soaked and decided that it would be prudent to actually "plug-in" at a camper van ground and try to dry out the van and our stuff! We ended up having a great night spent playing dual language scrabble (french and english) with many onlookers helping out with both languages. We met a few people who were from the same town in Quebec as Eve (Sherbrook)...they only live about 5 minutes apart!

The next morning we woke up to a sign that said road closed due to ice...so we had a lazy morning organizing the van before the road opened at 11. About 30 hr after commencing our drive I looked down and noticed we did not have enough gas to make it over the pass so we had to turn around and go back to Milford sound...however thank god we did as the sun finally came out and we actually got to see the sound! I guess some things happen for a reason!

Milford Sound the next morning!

That day we spent in Te Anau after we finally got gas and drove over the pass. We had a great time deciding on what wool to buy to make our own scarves. The knitting shop we were in had the greatest lady working there who was so knowledgeable and so enthusiastic! It turns out when you buy lots of GOOD wool...its expensive!! At 7 pm we went on a tour of some glow worm caves. It was incredible! Not easy to get to though! We had a 30 mn boat ride to the caves then we hiked up the cave system to where the glow worms lived. Each little glow worm twinkled like a little star on the roof of the cave. It was awe inspiring and so calming to be in the dark, silent cave in a boat over water looking at little lights! After the tour we proceeded just past the village of Gore to sleep for the night.

The next day we headed to Dunedin. I think this was our most memorable day. We booked 2 tours. the Cadbury chocolate factory in the morning and the Speights brewery in the afternoon.

Can you tell we were excited? I felt sick by the time we exited the Cadbury tour...for every question you anwsered correctly you got a piece of chocolate! Between our tours we browsed the shops of Dunedin and recovered from all the chocolate.

Our tour of the Speights brewery in the afternoon was amazing. Our tour guide was lively and hilarious! Sprinting from one part of the brewery to the next! After the tour we went into a bead store and spent over an hour picking great beads to make our own earrings!! then we went for Sushi. It was a great day!!! After sushi we rolled out of Dunedin (by far our favourite town) and headed back up the east coast towards Christchurch. We stopped for the night in Methven were we had left all our ski stuff. At around 4 am I woke up to the feeling of our van being severely rocked!! I thought someone was driving away with us in the back of the van! After thinking it through and realizing it wasn't someone driving away in the van or Kelly rolling around me and Eve decided it must have been the wind and swiftly fell back asleep. It was only in the morning thatwe found out it was a 7.5 earthquake that we had felt!

Morning after the earthquake...still obliviously that it had happened...

We drove from Methven to Christchurch and went to drop off our van. While we were there there was a 5.4 aftershock. We really felt that one! Throughout the rest of the day and that night there were constant small tremors. It was bizarre and at the same time you just got on with life! Our flight was cancelled and we ended up spending an extra night in Christchurch.

How many km's we drove during our trip!

Overall it was an amazing time with great friends and beautiful scenery! I would do it again in a heart beat!

I will update on Chile soon!

Ciao

Long lost from down under (NZ style)

Hello from New Zealand!

I have now been down here for 15 days...and wow have they been busy! We had 7 days in Lake Tekapo skiing at a resort called Round Hill. It was a great place to work on drills and gain confidence back in speed (yes...I DID SG!!! AND...it was really fun). The lovely thing about winter in New Zealand it that there is only snow on the ski slopes...which makes it a very easy transition from 38 degrees in Kamloops to winter! We have had great conditions on hill and are able to go outside and play soccer in the afternoons! Lake Tekapo was a very small town...it consisted on a strip mall selling lots of wool products and a couple of gas stations. To get out to the ski resort it was a 30 minute drive down a gravel round that winded (beautifully) around Lake Tekapo. Round Hill is a great little hill!!! It has a t-bar and the official worlds steepest poma. The poma accesses a steep open face which has epic skiing in the afternoons when the snow softens up! But man do you have to work to access it! To go up the poma you must wear a harness and attach it to a moving wire and hold on with one hand the whole way up! So yes your legs burnt on the way up but it was the hand holding yourself onto the wire that got the rough treatment!! It was VERY difficult to maintain a tight grip on the moving cable for the 5 minutes it took to get up! Letting go just wasn't a viable option if you wanted to get a great ski in!! I must add that the day we trekked up the poma it was after 7 runs of SG followed by 12 runs of slalom (we hit the millennium club for slalom alone...which means we did over a thousand gates). So in our defense...we were a little tired!

After skiing at Lake Tekapo for 6 days we drove down to Coronet Peak...which is about 20 minutes out of Queenstown. Once again the New Zealand landscape is picturesque to the extreme. We are staying on a beautiful golf course near Arrowtown. Surrounded by snow capped mountains, green fields and sheep it is hard not to fall in love with this location! Our first day here we had a day off so myself and my team mates Kelly McBroom, Maddy Irwin, Maddy McLeish, Vic Stevens and our physio Jenny went skydiving!!!

Skydiving is possible to coolest thing I have ever done. It was much less scary than expected. I wanted to challenge myself so I went from the highest you can go (15000 ft) and got my skydive "guy" to do backflips with me as soon as we jumped out of the plane! It felt amazing! I want to do it again as soon as possible!

We have skied 5 days here in Coronet with excellent hard snow and challenging terrain! Our chef took us out to dinner at his winery on the night of our day off were we tested different wines and cooked our own pizza. Once again it was great!

I will send more photos soon!

Ciao for now!
One of our backflips out of the plane!!
The top of the poma at Round Hill
The view up the poma
Lake Tekapo
The view of Mt Cook from Round Hill
Lake tekapo
Kelly jumping as usual in the Round Hill parking lot.

New Zealand Bound

Hello everyone!

I am on my way to New Zealand for a 4 week camp! Will keep you posted as soon I get there!

Cheers!

Elli

Summer and beyond!

Hello All!

So it has been quite a while since I last blogged. Sorry. I have been working really hard lately and haven't had a chance to sit and think for a while!

This past 2 months I have been working non-stop on our home reno project. It is going really well but a little slower than initially planned (you could say renovating an old house is like opening a can of worms)...but I won't go that far. It has been a great experience which has taught me a lot about the construction business and how to work in close quarters with my whole family! It really has been good. I don't think I have been home for such an extended amount of time for the past few years....well actually since I finished school...this has been my longest stay at home. To qualify I did go away a couple times but they were under a week so don't really count!

So far in July I have gone to Whistler for a dryland slash ski camp and I am now in Canmore visiting and training with my friend and teammate Kelly McBroom. I leave for New Zealand on the 28th of July. So yeah...my stay at home is over for now. I will be in New Zealand for 5 weeks which will be very exciting as I have never been to New Zealand.

Ta ta for now!

Home Reno!

New floor in bathroom
Hard wood floors!!
2275 kg of concrete later....

dirt everywhere!!!

Hello all!

So I have been so busy I haven't been able to et on-line to blog lately! My family bought a little dilapidated house in Kamloops which we have been renovating! What hard work!! My mom and I lugged 2275 kg of concrete out of the basement!! We have taken out walls...and removed a ton of lath and plaster!! Hard work aside it has been very interesting, and very fun!!! I love seeing the progress that can be made in such a short time!!!

So that has been my whole June. I am now in Whistler for two days training with my team mates Kelly, MP, and Britt in the gym! It is sooo nice to see them after so long puttering around in Kamloops!

Photos from the spring!

The view down from the top of Mt. Rundle!
At the top of EEOR in Canmore! Top of Mt. Rundle with Kelly!
My new cousin Sawyer!
Working with my horse Shimmer
Rockclimbing at Lac La Roche

Back to work!

Hello everyone!

It has continued to be a great week after getting home from Maui. First of all, I am the proud new owner of a car!!! Yay first time having my own car=more independence yes! I have a 2000 VW Passat...very pretty! Thank you to Kamloops Mazda for giving me such a good deal on a Volkeswagon!!

In other news I learned this week that there is good hiking around Kamloops!!! My friend Bre, my brother and myself hiked up the hoodoo's behind the Kamloops airport. They are so beautiful!! Such distinct features and peppered with bits of quarts and jade...and cactus!!! I got some cacti stuck in my ankle!!! Ouch...but I had revenge by collecting a bunch, peeling then eting them!! To anwser the question I know is coming....yes they are edible...yes someone informed on the subject told me...and yes they taste like chicken.....wait a tic....Kidding!! Just checking if you were paying attention!! They taste like a very watered down pear. Worth trying once in your life if only to say you've eaten cactus! Whatever the case it was a great hike in lovely Kamloops sunny weather!

I also went outdoor rockclimbing for the first time in a very long time! I have climbed indoors quite alot in the past few years but never had to opportunity to commit to the outdoors! I went with my friend Bre and her boyfriend out to Lac le Roche about a 30 min drive from Kamloops. I discovered that I was actually a little freaked out to belay back down the cliff! Going up no problem but coming back down took a second before I felt confident in my repelling abilities!

This week is about getting back into the swing of summer life as a ski racer...aka getting back in the gym and skiing!! Yesterday I drove out to Canmore in my new car! Today I went skiing with Jay Keddy (a nat. team coach) and it was excellent!! I feel like I learned a ton and that my skiing is already better! We worked on narrowing my stance, "clapping" in between turns and running a deeper line. I am going to ski for the next few days and I can't wait to continue working on these things! Hill in the morning gym in the afternoon...ah to be back in business!

Until next time!

Elli

Maui and Home

Hello everyone!

I just got home from a wonderful week in Maui!

I am now home and back to getting ready for another ski season. I have been doing lots of other sports recently (today I went outdoor rockclimbing...hiking yesterday) and next week I will get back into the gym for "real"! Looking forward to it!

Spring is in the air!

My dog Jazz after her first dip of the year in the lake!



The slalom of Nationals with Britt Jaynk

So I have been taking it nice and chill since finishing my race season at Spring Series in Nakiska on the 1st. I went home and fore ran the Canadian Masters Nationals which was a blast. It is incredible that you can ski race until your 90 (yes there was an incredible man there who's birth year was 1919!!!). If that is not motivation to live long and prosper I don't know what is!

I accomplished some real days of rest and got a few days of skiing in with my family! I also got to do a day of free skiing with my coach from when I was on the Sun Peaks Alpine Club, Johnny Crichton, who is still my favourite coach I have ever had! It is amazing how much confidence someone can inspire in you in just one day (thanks Johnny!!)

On the 9th I flew back out to the Banff area to have a great ski day with my buddy Mike Schneider who is out this direction to do his level 4 ski instructor exam (Good Luck MIKE)! We had a great day freeskiing the world cup downhill run at Lake Louise (much nicer to do on GS boards than DH's!!!).

Today I trained slalom at Norquay with Steph Irwin, Kelly McBroom and the BAR ski club. Again it was great! There were two courses set up, a drill course and a normal course. The awesome axis was off the charts (thanks mike for the quote!!). This was followed by lunch out in Canmore, a wicked game of scrabble, meeting Kelly's cool cousins and their cute dog Bruno, dinner at the grizzly paw-followed by crepes then....then to finish off an amazing day we saw three bands playing at a local coffee shop!! I absolutely loved the live music and drinking herbal tea!! The bands were Peter Katz (amazing lyrics and vocals), In-flight Safety (great sound!) and Yukon Blondes which blew the roof off the place with an incredible jam session at the end of their set...followed by an encore which resulted in the whole tea shop erupting into a dance party! I had no choice but to support them by buying a whole bunch of their CD's!! (Got to support the artists you know!!)

So basically my life has been great lately and I am hoping the trend will continue-on and off snow!

Cheers everyone...hope you are having an incredible spring!!!

Elli