Unexcused Absences

The time since our return from France has passed by in a blur, with trips to the Ft. Lauderdale Boat Show, the Bahamas, Beaver Creek for the annual World Cup ski races, followed by the holidays in Virginia with associated game nights, movie nights, cookie-decorating night, pot-luck dinners with friends, and the always popular Caddyshack Trivia night.

Now we are back in Beaver Creek for the rest of the winter, helping to prepare for the Alpine World Ski Championships. The WSC comes along every other year, and is normally held in the European ski powerhouse countries like Austria, Switzerland, Germany, France, and Italy. But every one to two decades the Championships are held in the USA, and the past two in North America have been held right here at the Vail/Beaver Creek areas (1989 and 1999). The only other North American host was Aspen way back in 1950.

Countdown to the 2015 World Ski Championships

Over the past six years of working with the Talon Crew (the on-hill course workers who help prepare and maintain the race tracks) we have become quite heavily involved, with favorite wife Heather building and maintaining Taloncrew.com, the official website, and your correspondent filling in as Crew Chief a number of days when, in desperation, the leadership turned to me to lead up to 20 of our fellow volunteers through the days’ work projects. Now, suddenly, the 2015 World Ski Championships, which Beaver Creek has been working on for close to three years, are only one day away.

K & H with Mikaela Shiffrin

Celebrating a successful training session

About 10 days ago we were powder skiing late morning on Grouse Mountain, a section of Beaver Creek with expert-only trails, when a couple of folks with US Ski Team jackets approached us. Would we mind slipping the training course (pushing the powder off to the sides) for Mikaela Shiffrin (Olympic Gold Medalist, World Champion, and overall World Cup Slalom Champion skier)? Her coaches had set up a private training course on lower Grouse Mountain for her to train slalom. Heather said “sure”, while I said “how much” (naturally). So we skied over and took a couple laps pushing the snow out of the way and got to watch her race up close (amazing) and then got to meet the young lady herself. An unexpected bonus to an already excellent day.

After that it’s been pretty much a blur of hanging A-net, shoveling, sideslipping, and general course prep, while every day more foreigners show up (broadcasters, coaches, racers) and the excitement builds. Tomorrow it’s a training day for the women on their new downhill course, followed by the opening ceremonies in downtown Vail, and then it’s game-on for the next two weeks as the most important event in ski racing happens outside our back door. NBC and Universal Sports have an extensive coverage package for the races, so check your local listings and then look for us on the slopes – we, along with about 2,200 other volunteers, will be in the red/white/blue ski outfits.

For the next 10 days, we will both be working as volunteers for the Birds of Prey World Cup Ski Race.  We’ll join hundreds of other volunteers who come to Beaver Creek in Colorado each year to make this amazing race happen. These folks do work so difficult it would be impossible to find and hire personnel for this job. Why do we do it? To sum up an earlier blog post, we work in order to be part of an amazing community that contributes to the sport we so love. We’re proud of the astonishing amount of effort that we – and hundreds of others – will do in the days to come.

This is our fourth year working for the Talon Crew (as the volunteers are known). I also happen to be the official blogger for the Talon Crew  and will be posting stories from the trenches! You can check out all the behind-the-scenes action at TalonCrew.com.

Here is a link to the first Talon Crew Blog Post of 2012!

Heather previously posted the writings she did as official Talon Crew blogger for the 2011 Audi Birds of Prey World Cup Downhill at Beaver Creek, so here I’ll just add my $0.02 on our week in Colorado and include two slideshows of photos I took during the 10-day event. For more on what the Talon Crew is about, see Heather’s posts on the subject, “Life on the Talon Crew” and “A Volunteer’s Life”

My impression of this year’s experience on the Talon Crew was even better than the two previous years. The whole operation really is a well-oiled machine, from the top (Brad, Jen and Kerry) on down. Living in the base village was superior to staying down in Avon and having to deal with the shuttle buses, so thank you to The Charter for their discount Talon Crew rate! We had a minor glitch with our room layout that they solved with a smile, no questions asked. Moving the Tuesday night volunteer party to the Dusty Boot was another big win; while the Minturn Saloon of previous years was a good time, it was certainly more convenient for those of us without cars to attend the event at the base village.

And I can’t talk about how fun volunteering is without mentioning our crew chiefs, Sean and Kevin. They set a really good tone for the work, keeping things organized and flowing during the day, and definitely letting their hair down once happy hour comes around. From Sean and Kevin and the returning crew members all the way to the new recruits this year, this team is a blast to work with.

First slideshow is a set of photos from the pre-race course prep. The Talon Crew begins preparing the downhill track the Friday after Thanksgiving, and works for five straight days setting up A-net, slipping the course, preparing the start house, installing B-fence, and raking out uneven areas of the course.

TALON CREW COURSE PREP 2011

Beaver Creek Village

Spruce Saddle Lodge at dawn

Tools of the trade

Talon Crew hauling A-net liner

Sean Norris

Raising the A-Net

High-speed slip above "Pumphouse"

Grading the back of the A-net

Just in case

The steeps in "Pete's Arena"

Course prep with a chainsaw?

Top of Golden Eagle jump

The final grading

30 seconds of rest

The daily debriefing at the Coyote Cafe

Conference at the top of Golden Eagle jump

Our room (thank you, The Charter, for the nice discount!)

Next comes two days of downhill training and three days of World Cup racing action. I’ve got action photos of some athletes and other associated race-day photos.

RACE DAY PHOTOS, BIRDS OF PREY 2011

A VERY early chairlift ride on race day

A Sony broadcast camera with a BIG Canon lens

Slovenian coach (team motto, "Go SLO!")

Course inspection

Nordica ski tech

The finish arena during the downhill

Scott Snow greets his fan club at the finish arena

Big right foot turn in "Pete's Arena"

Ted Ligety on course

Aksel Lund Svindal (easy now, ladies!)

Snow squalls during the Super G

Austrian TV

Didier Cuche with his famous ski flip

Bode wins the 2011 downhill

Team Jacket Composite

I also shot a brief video of McD doing some course prep… with a chainsaw!!!

As part of my work for the Talon Crew, I gathered stories from fellow crewmembers and quotes from the athletes during the 2011 Audi Birds of Prey World Cup ski races.  Enjoy!

Bode Miller

I spoke with Bode Miller after the first training run for the Downhill.
Heather: What would you like to say to the Talon Crew, the volunteer course maintenance workers?
Bode: This is the most well manicured course on the circuit. There’s a great quality to the snow. It’s so smooth because there’s an army of folks out there busting their butts, and we really appreciate it.

Long-time volunteer Shelly Zuroff relates the following tale:
I am working below the Golden Eagle jump, directing slippers as they come down the pitch. As the ski club kids come through, they keep missing the fluff pile right next to me. I am getting a little frustrated, so I look up the hill and see somebody standing there. I point straight at him and yell, “You! I want you right here!” Then, I gesticulate from him to the pile next to me.

He takes off and just obliterates the pile of snow.

“You did that really well, thanks!” I say to him. As he turns around, I realize it is Bode Miller

“Well,” he replies. “I try.”

Scott Snow

Scott Snow, the youngest racer on the US Ski Team and rising downhiller, took his first runs down the Birds of Prey racecourse earlier this week. He skied as a forerunner during the downhill training runs.
Heather: I know you’ve kept a map of the course since you were 15 that’s about six feel long detailing every turn and pitch along this course. You work on it every time you visit Beaver Creek and ski Golden Eagle. You’ve just skied your first World Cup course on the Birds of Prey, how was it?
Scott: It’s the most fun I’ve had in about a minute-and-fifty-one seconds of my life! It’s just like the other athletes say, the course is so smooth, perfect! I can’t wait to run it again!

Jan Hudec (photo by Praz)

World Cup gold medalist Jan Hudec joined the Talon Crew for dinner at the Dusty Boot on Tuesday evening. The downhiller wanted to thank the Crew for their work.
Jan: I stopped by to thank the Talon Crew. It’s such a pleasure to come to a beautiful hill and a beautiful village like this. It makes you really realize why you’re a ski racer! The athletes really appreciate all of the work that you do. We’re going to go out there this weekend and rip it up!

Hubert Seigmann (photo by Marlo Maroon)

Team Captain Sean Norris relates this tale:
The public has already left the mountain when Asa releases us. I am sweeping behind my crew when I see two of our newest volunteers, Hubert and Marlo at the side of the slope. Hubert’s binding has just broken.

One of the race crew comes up and asks Hubert if he needs help returning to the bottom. Hubert says no, turns, and skis straight down the hill. I mean straight down the hill on one ski! Marlo takes off after him and damn can that girl ski. I have to totally let it run to keep up with her! We’re all chasing this one-skied madman down the hill. We can’t catch him and all of us have on two skis!

He finally stops to wait for us. Hubert, Marlo and I collapse in fits of giggles. We’re having so much fun! I see confusion on the faces around us as race crew and ski patrol gather around us. They’re all wondering who is this guy who can ski faster than everybody on only one ski?

Yeah, that’s Hubert. He’s a retired World Cup racer. He’s raced the Birds of Prey. He’s come back to Beaver Creek to volunteer with the Talon Crew. Amazing.

Hermann Maier (photo by taloncrew.blogspot.com)

A tale from a course worker who desperately wishes to remain anonymous:
A number of years ago, I was working at the start shack. I see Hermann Maier coming toward me looking very serious. I back up to give him room, to allow him to get in his race zone. He keeps coming toward me. He’s a big guy, and he looks mad, so I back up all the way to the fence. And he keeps coming toward me! I start to back through a gap in the fence that opens into trees and he’s still coming toward me! I freeze, having absolutely no idea what to do.

“Not you.” he says in his thick, Austrian accent. “Toilet.”

Ted Ligety - Winner BOP GS 2010

We’ve just arrived in Beaver Creek, Colorado.  For the next ten days, we will eat, breathe and live World Cup ski racing.  The very best athletes from the entire planet are converging this week to test themselves against each other and against the mountains in the annual Birds of Prey World Cup series.  We’re here to volunteer our time and our sweat to help make it happen.

Thanks to my broken foot, I’ll be blogging on behalf of the Talon Crew, a group of volunteers who work to create and maintain the race course.  I’ll post links here so that you can follow the Crew over the next few days.

If you want to get psyched up for winter, for racing, or want to learn more about downhill ski racing, check out this video segment on the Birds of Prey race from the documentary “The Thin Line.”  Enjoy!