April Activities

During the month of April, my friend Liz Stephen calls herself, "Fun Liz". Not to say she and the rest of us aren't fun the remainder of the year, but during the month of April, we can experience a different kind of fun that doesn't involve worrying about the little everyday stresses of being a ski racer. Some April activities that fall into my fun category are: not roller skiing until May, back country skiing as much as possible, crust skiing ever once in awhile, going to the beach, spending time with friends and family, and generally focusing on mentally and physically recovering from a long season without worrying about training hours. After spending about a week at home after Spring Series, I headed out to Colorado to spend a few weeks with Simi and his family in Aspen.

Beautiful (and bumpy) flight from Denver to Aspen

Simi took it easy on me my first few days in Colorado and we did some shorter skis while I adjusted to altitude and keeping up with him. My first weekend out there, we had a bunch of friends come to Sim's cabin for the weekend. These were some of my favorite kinds of April days consisting of waking up, skiing all day, coming home and having a cold beer on the deck, making a big dinner, going to bed, and doing it all over again.  It was a full cabin and we had some incredible skiing!

The crew!

First day of skiing in CO

Snack break

Liz and Al

Happy happy happy

Celine and Liz came to visit for the weekend!

Gus flew out for his first back country experience and was a champ

Sim checking Sylv's beacon

Ben, Hannah, and Liz scoping out a route for the day

On top of the world with Liz, Ben, Nils, and Hannah

Me, Liz, and Celine on top of Highlands Bowl

Liz and me skiing some pow pow

Tour guide Al and me

Weeeee

After a few days of recovering from our big weekend at the cabin, my cousin Anya and our friend and wax tech Tim came to Aspen for a few days. We toured around Aspen for a day before heading back into the cabin for a couple more days of skiing. We timed this perfectly with a big snow storm and I got to ski the most powder I've ever skied in my life (which isn't saying much, but it was a lot!!).

Uncle Howie in Aspen!

Tim and Anya

Anya and me

XC ski out to Maroon Bells

Anya!

me

Sim, Anya, me, and Tim

After a ton of skiing in Colorado, we packed up for a photo shoot with L.L. Bean in Asheville, North Carolina. I had been to Asheville once before to visit my cousin Alexa who was living there and it's a really incredible place. It has a huge outdoor community, and a culture that is rich in art, music, good food, and good beer. It is located in the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains and we got to do most of our shoot up in the mountains. Jessie, Simi, and I were the models for the shoot and we had a blast with the company. Look for some of the photos to appear this fall!

behind the scenes

Heading to the waterfall

sunrise shots

Sunset shots

Blue ridge mtns

Jess and Sim in downtown Asheville

After our L.L. Bean shoot, Sim and I flew back to Colorado for a day before out final adventure of the month! For the last week of April, we went down to Sayulita, Mexico for a week of beach time. Our friend MJ met us down there and we had a lovely week of surfing, paddle boarding, mexican food, margaritas, and relaxing. It was the perfect week to finish off Fun April and now I'm excited to being the new training year! I'll be back in Vermont for the next two weeks before our start up camp in Bend Oregon the last two weeks of May. Thanks for following!

Sayulita Sunset

Beach time

MJ and Sim on the roof top deck overlooking town and the ocean

Lunch spot

MJ sunset surfing