Pug Nation, convening on the slopes of Attitash for one of the best weeks of the year. The 3rd annual Mountain Camp! This camp has a reputation, and boy did it live up to the hype this year. Helping that hype was the most motivated and driven group this club may have ever seen. We used to include one or two double-session days into this camp…this year, everyone was hungry for more. After our traditional brutal bounding intervals up the alpine trails, we had one group later that afternoon pumped to pedal 2 miles of 17% grade on a Lincoln Gap-esque brutal mountain road all in the name of an epic 15-minute downhill run.
That kind of motivation pervaded camp, and it was the manifestation of a huge change within this group. The “ski lifestyle” has embedded itself within the climate of the team.
- Skiers are filling out their training logs before the van has even arrived back at the house for lunch (thanks smartphones!)
- Skiers are asking to start as low as possible on the Kanc double pole, and still hitting the top in record time (thanks strength training!)
- Skiers are hiking in the Presidential Range for 7 hours, and then spending the 8th hour RUNNING out along a flatter stretch of river (thanks fitness!)
- Skiers are finishing the bounding intervals, and then turning back down the hill to run up with teammates that haven’t finished yet (thanks team!)
This year we nailed most all of the logistics, from a real and properly-outfitted van to enough real sleeping room for all athletes. We still had our traditional “Mountain Camp Departure SNAFU” as the lock on the trailer broke and we had to make a quick pitstop at Ace Hardware to borrow a hefty pair of bolt cutters, but from there onward no more issues. (Side note: looking for that sponsorship hookup from the Waterbury Ace Hardware. Please contact me if interested)
On Day 1 (Wednesday) we hike Mount Tremont, a pretty nondescript but beautiful mountain at the base of Crawford Notch. There was a nice view at the top, and a better swimming hole at the bottom. We then did a little team PlayDoh building competition to earn this year’s big hit: the first-edition of our new Pugtagonia Hats. This is a summer fashion line that’s about to take the outdoorsy world by storm (until the lawsuit).
Pugtagonia Summer ’18 Collection
On Day 2 (Thursday) we kicked things off with one of our biggest and best workouts: the Kancamagus Roll! This is one of the 2 workouts we’ve done at every single Mountain Camp and it’s always a great time. Nothing like a 2-2.5 hour ski ending atop a mountain pass with a picnic lunch. Every year folks try to double pole as much as possible. It’s very cool to see the progression of newer and less-experienced rollerskiers starting up higher, and more experienced skiers getting dropped off further from the end point. Each year, everyone basically “graduates” to starting further down, as well as doing less and less striding or kick-double-pole, until the whole this is just double poling. As Aidan would say, YEET!
First catalog shot for the Pugtagonia brand atop the Kanc
That afternoon, we took to the trails in North Conway for either a run, or the MNC BikeGang NH Edition. After a chain and derailleur malfunction caused Will’s bike to become an adult strider-bike we had to call it and slog back to the trailer, but all in all it was a great ride on some fun local trails.
Not in VT, but the MNC Bikegang rolls on
The morning of Day 4 (Friday) brought our second traditional Mountain Camp workout: hard bounding intervals. Each year we start at the base of an alpine mountain (first Attitash in 2016, then Cranmore in 2017, back to Attitash in 2018) and get some L3 skiwalking in before I attempt an inspiration speech and start yelling and hollering while everyone bounds until they collapse. Good old-school training at its finest.
Flyin Solow starting his mission to the summit of Attitash
We all gathered at the summit where there is a nice little viewing tower, gave a cheer, and headed down to the base. Coincidentally, this part of Attitash is named “Bear Peak” and partway down the mountain on the gravel access road we startled a mother black bear and her 3 cubs, who scurried out of a tree and away from us as fast as possible. Good thing we were all chatting, yelling, and being loud as we went down which is the usual course of action for us!
Jenny demonstrating how we feel about the Slow Zone
That afternoon, instead of hitting the couch and laying around in lactic acid puddles, the gang rallied for another sesh. After the MNC Bikegang ride the day earlier, a very intriguing downhill run called the Red Tail Trail had been scoped out on some maps by Eli, Aidan, Will, Ben and myself. Despite having crushed our legs earlier that morning, we had no problem saddling up for a grueling hour-long climb that really put the “mountain” in mountain biking with a summit of Black Cap Mountain.
Mountain biking…can definitely take you places!
Stone steps? Not a problem
After the long climb, we were rewarded with an amazing 15-minute descent that Aidan described as the “best bike trail he’s ever been on”, a statement he made approximately one minute before shredding his tube and rear tire apart from riding so aggressively. Luckily it gave us a few minutes to shoot this edit with Eli hitting the large berms and jumps at the bottom of the trail:
Day 5…the legendary Mount Washington day. Every year we’ve done a pretty simple hike taking us to the top of Mt Washington and back. This year, we split up and one group attempted a pretty ambitious endeavor: a half Presi-Traverse up Madison, Adams, Jefferson, and finally Washington. It turns out Sara’s group had a very fun and uneventful trip up Tuckerman’s Ravine and a nice lunch at the summit.
Before that Tuckerman’s group took off, Sara drove me and the other half of the team to the Dolly Copp campground where we embarked on our point-to-point mission.
Will, Ben Carnahan, and Aidan pushed the pace and beat the odds to summit Washington after bagging all of those peaks…but a troublesome knee forced an unplanned exit via car rather than a hike out.
Meanwhile the group of Meredith, Magda, Rose, Sammie, Ava, Jenny, and myself realized we wouldn’t make Washington in time (or possibly daylight) so much to the groans of that group I made the coaches discretionary call that we head down through the Great Gulf Wilderness off of Jefferson in order to avoid trouble as the day wore on. This proved to be quite the adventure and though we didn’t summit Washington, there was really no “easy” option out from our final high point. We scrambled down ladders and through caves before facing about 6 miles of running in order to make it back to the lodge.
This is where the true strength of this team (and this sport) lies. After 6 hours we all started to feel the fatigue. But we soldiered on, took a few photos for the Pugtagonia catalog to keep our sanity, and made it to the lower elevations.
Running some ridgelines in the White Mountains
After 7 hours, water and food supplies began to run low. If not for the Red Bulls that Meredith and Magda brought along I’m not sure we would’ve had the blood sugar values to keep the spirits up at all.
But from hour 7 to hour 8, we pretty much ran non-stop to the very end. Endorphins were running high, and bonking be damned. We were doing this thing. We ripped the last 2 miles at a seriously fast clip just as rain started dotting our sweaty foreheads as we emerged and met Sara at the van.
It was one of the most memorable workouts I’ve EVER done, and I was so impressed with the group and how everyone handled themselves. Woohoo!
A very good feeling: running out of the woods after 8 hours of work!
Comparatively, the final day of camp, Day 5 (Sunday) was nice and relaxed. We returned to the lower stretches of the Kanc for a double pole on flatter terrain before hitting the road home. This camp was quite the week of training but also a hugely impressive week for the team in general. I think I mentioned to one parent in the parking lot on the trip home (hard to remember, I was a bit doubled-over from dehydration and heat exhaustion…whoops) that “we seem to come back from Mountain Camp 25% more cohesive” and while there are definitely exceptions and we are far from perfect, I think that on the whole that notion holds pretty true. It’s time to start planning and thinking about what more we can do for Mountain Camp 4 in 2019!
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