Fall Fun!
October was an extremely busy month for JHSC Nordic and the Club in general! Over the course of this month we hosted a Nordic USSA Coaching Certification Clinic, put on the Ski Swap, started practice for the Junior middle school team, and had our annual Trail Creek Cleanup Day. Oh yeah, and the Prep/Comp team also trained every day through the whole month! The beginning of the month was marked by beautiful foliage and warm weather and we closed the month out with periodic snow and bare trees. Winter is on its way!
Junior Nordic Kicks Off
The Junior Nordic team is our group for middle school-aged athletes who are interested in taking the next step in the JHSC Nordic pipeline. Juniors start training in October and have the opportunity to get in a significant amount of dryland training and start building a fun team culture. Junior Nordic activities in October have included an introduction to rollerskiing, pumpkin relays up High School Butte, playing speedball, and doing some mellow core strength exercises. These athletes have a great opportunity to learn how to train in a systematic way for endurance sport and have tons of fun while they are at it. Our coaching staff for Juniors is spectacular this year, consisting of three former collegiate skiers who have accomplished great things in Nordic sport. George Cartwright grew up in Lander and had a stellar ski career including Junior National Championships, World Junior Championships trips, and collegiate skiing in Michigan. Johnny Springer skied for University of New Hampshire and competed in multiple NCAA championships. JT Wynn was a multisport athlete and both ran and skied for Williams College. The Junior team is looking strong this year with 35 athletes! The future is bright...
Trail Creek Cleanup
Huge thank you to everybody who came out last weekend for our annual Trail Creek Cleanup day! We had a huge project list that we needed to accomplish and with the help of the JHSC Nordic community we got it done! We built two bridges to keep all of our system trails connected, coated the Cabin with a new layer of stain, spread tons of woodchips to smooth out the trails, cut down a few huge trees that were in the way of the new groomer, and put up a few cords of firewood to keep the Cabin nice and toasty this winter!
Prep/Comp Update
Our highest level of programming has been hard at work this month! Many of the JHSC Nordic athletes were doing fall sports such as mountain biking and cross-country running, and their strong summer of training showed through in the state championship weekends. Kaya Kandolin got 3rd and Colton Petsch got 2nd in the state Mountain Biking Championships, with Will Johnson and Sam Sinclair putting in great performances. Kate Brigham and Mason Wheeler won State for cross-country running with Abby Murphy and Axel Klomparens all running well and helping their teams to 2nd in State. The team is in a great place heading into winter and we have strength and depth. The winter season officially kicks off in late November in West Yellowstone at the Rendezvous Ski Festival, where we will be taking over 20 athletes to ski their brains out. We did our last time trial before West Yellowstone last week and the tea leaves look promising, as both Elsie Hall and Peter Warner set new team records for the Flat Creek Time Trial. Full steam ahead!
Nordic Masters Clinics Open
This year JHSC Nordic will be running recreational masters clinics for adults who want to improve their classic and skate skiing! Sessions will be at Teton Pines and Trail Creek, and will be a mix of skate and classic. There will be a series of 10 clinics from December through February. You can buy a full season pass to all 10 clinics or just the 5 classic or skate clinics if you want to focus on one technique. If you can only make one or a few clinics a drop-in rate is also available. Sessions will be taught by Scott Horn and JHSC Nordic coaches. Information and registration links can be found at this link.
