7th & 8th Grade Girls: Racing hard & definitely having fun!
Craftsbury pulled out all the stops for their “Northwoods In Winter” BKL Fest held this past weekend on March 3 & 4th. We had 33 MNC kids attend from Lollipoppers to Nordic Adventurers to graduating 8th graders!
Saturday greeted us with a snowstorm. In snowed the entire day but Craftsbury did a great job with the course and conditions stayed good. Despite everyone’s anxiety about the driving and just getting to the site on time, things seemed to go without a hitch. We got to the site, got our tent & base camp set up and figured out some structure to make the kids skis go a little faster in the warm snow. NWVT, our District, had a few kids who got sick or decided not to drive at the last minute and we had a number of relay changes. All our kids were flexible and resilient and everyone had a good time racing no matter who they were paired with, some even finding new ski friends.
The relays were skate this year and the races were led off by the first and second graders who did mixed gender relays. Long-time friends Oliver Tremble and Isabella Altadonna paired up once again for a first place finish while team-mates Rory Dillon and Ollie Laber had an impressive top twenty finish among a large and fast field. Finn Laber and Gabriel Schroeter joined forces to ski in the 3/4 boys relay and did a fantastic job. It is so impressive how well all these young skiers can skate ski!
While we had no 5/6 girls, we had a number of 5/6 boys and we had to make a few last minute relay changes to their teams due to illnesses. Renny Schaefer and Charlie Sterner were tagged off by Olly Donovan from Sleepy Hollow and both of them skied their hearts out to the finish. Oakley Crawford did a great job scrambling and tagging off to Liam Vile who also did a great job, ending in a sprint to a photo finish for third with a NY skier. Oakely & Liam were awarded fourth, probably by only 0.001 seconds, which usually amounts to a toe! It’s time to grow longer feet Liam!
With some last minute changes, both our 7/8 boys ended up on relay teams with skiers from Frost Mountain! It was a good mix and James Langan paired with Jorgen Pirrung finished sixth while Isaiah Bowen and Henry McDonnel came in 11th- great finishes in the very competitive and large 7/8 boys field.
The rest of the day was filled with Nordic Adventure activities. There was a maple center where you could learn and taste all the different grades of maple syrup, there was dodge ball, the very popular radar run where you could see how fast your skis were going, the jump on chip hill, the North Woods center, the pump track and lots of vendors like Skida and Fischer. And then there was lunch and snacks at our home base tent set-up by our parents. You could go off and ski and come back for a muffin, a bagel and countless other snacks! A very fun day!
Sunday:
Sunday was a perfect ski day. The snow had stopped, the trail was groomed powder and the tracks were well set by the experienced groomers at Craftsbury. The waxing, however, wax tricky. For all you wax nerds out there, we started the day on hard wax and ended up on klister with a number of changes along the way. It was important to test your skis on the course which was quite different from the other trails. The kids did a great job helping us get it dialed in for each of them. Special thanks to Taylor Carlson who ended up being our chief wax tester for the day.
The races started with the 5/6 girls and boys. These kids all went off two at a time, every 15 seconds. This is called a “paired start” and all the kids from first grade through 6th grade went off this way today. Liam Vile, Oakley Crawford, Renny Schaefer and Ansel Sprague all skied very well. Liam even finished an impressive 4th place!
The “always exciting” 7/8 races were next. Our 7/8 girls are an impressive bunch. We had five of them finish in the top 15 with Kate Carlson leading the way and finishing at the top of the podium. Our 7/8 boys are not far behind! They all did a fantastic job in a very competitive field. It’s awesome to have such a great group of 7/8’s. I think these all these guys are going to have a great time training and racing together in the future!
It’s really important to “get your glitter on”! Kate Carlson helps Daisy Tremble get ready for the Lollipop race!
The Lollipop Race and the 8th grade graduation were held at noon. The 8th graders are awarded certificates and then get to hand out the lollipops to the Lollipop racers. It’s a great circle of completion and always lots of fun! Congratulations and best of luck as Juniors & High Schoolers to Kate Carlson, Mo Brown and Hazel Fasching!
After lunch we had the 3/4 races. Finn Laber and Gabriel Schroeter both skied very fast and finished well. On to the 1/2 races where we had four skiers: Oliver Tremble, Bella Altadonna, Rory Dillon and Ollie Laber. Having finished waxing for the day, this is the one race I was really able to watch and I was so impressed at how well these young skiers skied. I saw great striding, upright bodies and Klaebo running. Really nice job to all these 3/4 & 1/2 racers!
Parents- As you can see, I could use some more pictures to post! Send them to me if you have some good ones! I also want to thank you all for bringing food, helping with bibs, set-up and tear down and for being great & organized parents. All the kids got to the start line on time, they all had a good warm-up, and amazingly, nothing was left behind! I appreciate all your hard work with your kids and I hope you had a blast too because I know all the kids did! It was fun for me and Adam too and your help and your kids made it that way. Thanks!
Mia digs deep in her double pole.
Hazel Fasching
Oliver Tremble with his ferocious double pole!
Rory Dillon really getting good glide on that ski!
Bella has perfect classic body position here and her weight fully committed to that forward ski. She always races best in her ski tutu!
Margo is ready for the Lollipop Race!
Ski buddies!
We had a great time up in Craftsbury last week during vacation! We previewed the BKL Festival courses, then went for a classic tour in excellent powder conditions. After lunch we took over the lower soccer field, did some team sprint relay races and then played a lot of sharks & minnows and everyone’s it tag. Beautiful weather, great conditions made for a very fun day!
