Brantling

Every year Brantling Ski area hosts a couple of slalom races Christmas Eve day. Brantling may be the smallest place I visit this year. The total vertical drop for Brantling is 250 feet. My daughter entered the races this year. We left home early that Saturday morning. The drive was about an hour and a half. When we arrived they were pushing snow to build a finish area for the race. The hill was thin an narrow but there would be a race (two actually). Apparently, the show guns were on until about 7:00 AM that morning. Race 1 was scheduled for 10:00 AM.

Brantling has a giant claim to fame. It was the home mountain for Diann Roffe. Among Diann's most notable achievements was an Olympic gold medal in superG at the 1994 Lillehammer, Norway winter games and World Championship victory in GS at Bormio, Italy in 1985.

The first time I visited Brantling was before Diann's Olympic victory. I took one look at the hill and understood how they had produced a world champion. The race hill is the main slope. It is short and not too wide with a sort of rope tow on the side of the trail. I say sort of because there are these metal things attached to the cable that you can put behind your back or seat to help pull you up the slope. The athletes are never out of sight. They are either on the course or on the lift and never out of ear shot. Racing and training on this little hill helps keep the hill interesting and fun.

My daughter's day was not so much fun. She took it a bit too seriously. She, like over 90% of the field had not had any chance to train in slalom gates this season. Go figure, who has snow. We tried to approach the day as just a training day. She did make the flip both races but was not happy with her skiing. The flip is the start order for the second run. For the second run of the race, the top 30 athletes are started in reverse order of first run finish and after those thirty race the rest of the field runs in first run finish order. So, she really did okay considering the circumstances of this really weird winter but she was pretty hard on herself. In the way home after thinking about it for the first hour of the trip, she did admit it was fun to race even if she hated the way she skied.

I have only been to Brantling 3 times over the years and all were for ski races. I have always had fun there. The people there are friendly, the food is pretty good and the bar seems to be as big of an attraction as the skiing. Everyone there seems to delight in how small and intimate things are. While they all seem humble, they are quick to mention Diann. If I lived close to it, I would probably ski there but luckily I live near a mountain with nearly three times the height; a whopping 700 vertical feet and almost as friendly and humble. We can't, at my fun little mountain in what I affectionately call (tongue in cheek) the Truxton Alps, lay claim to a world or Olympic champion but we do have many really good skiers. I believe I will never go to Brantling for a ski day but I will definitely be back for a race.

Plake

My last post was about the PSIA-E Pro Jam at Killington December 12-16 2011 with somewhere near 500 ski instructors from all over the East attending. The exceptions to the east thing are that some of the course conductors are from the PSIA National Team and are from all parts of the skiing country. The other exception this year was the Glenn and Kimberly Plake. They were enrolled in the event. Both are preparing for their level 3 certification. Glenn was in a Level 3 part 2 preparation group (part 2 is the teaching portion of the test). Kimberly was in the level 3 part 1 (skiing) preparation course. I believe Glenn decided last season to peruse the PSIA certification and should finish it up this season.

They are amazingly friendly people. I ski on Elan skis and am friends with one of Elan's National Sales managers. He informed me Monday that the Plakes would be coming in Tuesday morning. Glenn skis on Elan skis too. At any rate, fist thing Tuesday morning they walk in with no entourage or pomp, set their ski bags down at a table in the lodge, and begin getting ready to ski just as the other 500 attendees for the event were doing. The difference was that 45 minutes later, Glenn was still standing in his socks without his ski boots on. In those 45 minutes he at greeted everyone that approached him with a smile and a handshake. He was not too busy for small talk or to have his picture taken with anyone that asked. Both Plakes seem genuinely interested in meeting and talking to everyone. For me this makes sense as he has built a pretty nice career with a wild dyed mohawk hair do and apparently no trace of a "what if" in his brain. With a little help from Warren Miller, he has become as recognizable skier as there is and has spent over 20 years entertaining skiers both on and off the snow. In my opinion, he has mellowed a bit as he has grown older and has slowly morphed into a fabulous ambassador for the sport of alpine skiing, not just the off piste stuff but all of it. The Plakes continued to make time for anyone approaching them all week. On Wednesday afternoon Glenn spent the afternoon skiing with 10 lucky people that won a raffle for the chance. Glenn wore his mohawk up at the Thursday night banquet. He was the MC for the door prizes and began his remarks with and apology for disrupting the week and thank yous for allowing he and Kimberly to take part. I would find it hard to believe anyone found their presence a negative distraction for the event. I found them very non assuming. They each skied as a regular group member in there respective courses, sat with those groups at the banquet, and added a, sort of, excitement to the week. Their passion and enthusiasm are very infections for skiers they interact with. For me it was really fun having them part of the event. Yup, I got my picture taken with Glenn and Kimberly at the banquet. I am sure that the great percentage of people at the Pro Jam that went home with a picture of themselves standing with Glenn.