Passing Lane: Welcome AK's Jordan Lane to the Team!

I am really excited to be on the SRD Squadra Team! This is my first blog so I’m just going to jump in…

This summer was amazing! I had the opportunity to spend a few weeks in Alaska, before my hectic summer began. Really enjoyed spending time with my family and friends, lots of sleeping in, hiking, and bike riding. Then headed off to Mt. Hood for a week, with a couple of my teammates.

We had a great time and training was awesome. After Hood, I met my family for our annual Seattle/Foul Weather Bluff reunion. Lots of sunshine, beach fires, kayaking, crabbing, swamp walks, and general good times.

From Seattle my family flew to Santiago, Chile, and I attended my first day of High School three days later! We used to live in Chile, so we return for part of each summer now. My sister, brother and I attend school at Saint Gabriels in Santiago and ski at Valle Nevado. It was an interesting time to be there, because the students were protesting. One morning I approached the subway on my way to school, and the street was blocked off, with couches and mattresses on fire. That got my attention!

It was great to return and see all of my friends at school, and use my Spanish. It was an incredible opportunity to return to my club and ski with them at Valle Nevado. We had great training, and had lots of fun. I also participated in my first FIS races, in Chile and Argentina.

It was a mini circuit and I traveled from mountain to mountain on bus, for about 2 weeks. My coach skied on Argentina’s national team, so one night we had an asada (barbecue) with 4 of Argentina’s best racers all from the same family!

Back in Alaska, I began my freshman year (again) at South Anchorage High. Since I returned a couple weeks late, lots of catching up to do, but just finished my last makeup assignment. Working on dryland now, and waiting for the snow to fall!

I’m looking forward to a great year of skiing with the Alyeska Ski Club and representing SRD.

.)) Jordan Lane

In the Swing: Back from Chile

Hey SRD. The past couple weeks have been very tiring. I have finished the first three weeks at GMVS. This is my second year back at GMVS School.

For working out we have been doing a lot of running, jumps and power and best of all mountain biking. I then got ready for my first trip to Chile. I have been looking forward to it for quite a while.

The ten hour plane ride was really long and I got more and more eager to ski. My group finally got through customs and then we were off on a three hour van ride. The next three days we trained slalom and drills. We then did GS drills for three days and three days of gates. We also worked on doing a SuperG jump. The first time I did it I accidentally popped it and I almost landed on the flats! The rest of the jumps went much better.

For the last two days of the camp we did slalom gates. At first we did inside clearing of the gates and then we moved on and did cross blocking.

The last day we did "Man Hunt". The place we played was amazing. It was on and around small shacks and storage containers where people live. I would feel so bad they live in such a small storage container. After the game was over my group packed up and we headed off to the airport.

We got there about four hours early. As we waited to board the flaps on the plane were broken. The J3’s stayed in a Best Western over night. In the morning we finally boarded our plane. We then had a extra thirty minute wait because the plane needed fuel. We took off and I had another eleven hour plane ride.This time I slept much more.

We landed in New York, then had a six hour bus ride back to the GMVS campus in Vermont. I am just relieved to finally be back in the USA.

.)) Eli Swing