BMA English teachers past & present racing together

Former and current BMA English teachers Tom DeCarlo and Brandon Mazur challenged themselves this summer by racing 2 of New England's toughest races: The Vermont Overland Grand Prix in Woodstock and the Dirty Forty in Derby. Take a look at Brandon's bike at the end of it!

Snow in South America

What a difference a weekend makes! This place is transformed after some heavy snow over the weekend. We got about 30cm down in the village, and close to 90cm up on the higher parts of the mountain. They're forecasting more snow next weekend as well, so it should be an interesting ride out of here on Friday afternoon. Here are some photos from the scene:

Before...

After!

Our apartments have a view down to Santiago. It's usually pretty smoggy and hard to see all the way down there, but when it's cold out and the smog settles, the city twinkles way below.

The village, transformed.

The girls get some time in the fitness room on our day off.

Back on snow, with an early morning GS set.

We're looking forward to another good week here!

Last Day for the U16 Boys

We concluded a great camp with more great snow today. The boys were pumped to air things out a bit today... literally and figuratively.

 Chris, Matt, Shamus

Jack L, Chris, Shamus, Matt, Connor, Ian, Andrew, Jack B

Hanus' turn 17

Today was on off day for the FIS crew and we had a pretty easy day.  It also happens to be Lexi and Matt Hanus' Birthday.  We received some great cakes from Santiago and the kids celebrated after dinner.  Thanks to Susan and Mike for supplying cake for the group.  The snow is coming so keep your fingers crossed for some good skiing to finish out the camp!

Local Scenes: Hood to Coast Relay

Today the Hood to Coast Relay race is taking place, starting at Timberline Lodge at 6:30am this morning and it goes throughout the day, eventually finishing in Seaside on the coast. During leg 2 runners go right through Government Camp and past Hucks. The relay brings over 17,000 runners and walkers from across the nation, who dress up, paint vans, run through the night, and raise money for cancer research. It is obviously a much larger scale than our GMR, but it is reminiscent and it gets us excited for GMR 2015!!

 The start at Timberline Lodge parking lot: runners leave every 15 minutes

 Painted vans: I believe this one says "12 Sorry Canadians"

Top of Government Camp, people cheer at the handoff point

The First Few Days of Chile

As promised, here's a quick update with some photos from the FIS camp in Chile...


A few shots from SL training on Estadia Piuquenes on Sunday. I can email you some pretty high-res copies of these if you want! The poma makes it feel like home.

Left to right it's Lexi, Jordan, Paige, Dannica, and Josefine on the poma.

Moriah and Dannica ready to run.

Madison: TIME-IN!

Anna and Josefine

Today was Wednesday, and the women's team brought back one of the finest and most dignified BMA traditions: Mustache Wednesday! Yes, that is a Sharpie. Turns out that sunscreen smudges permanent marker, so the ladies were looking pretty haggard by the end of the session. There were some good ones out there today, but the Mustache Of The Day has to go to Tess - and I'll never forgive myself for not getting a timely photo. There's always next week.

Madison keeping Anna's mustache game tight.

The finished product, pre-sunscreen. I promise we'll get the group shot next week.

Did somebody say, "Bromance?" Matt wishes he could shuttle Kai around on this rig, but it only (safely) seats one. Actually, since the front brakes don't work, you could argue that it really safely seats "none," but since Kai can't get it started anymore it's sort of a non-issue. This is Kai's primary mode of transportation around La Parva when he's here during our summer - pretty handy as the village is built into a steep hillside. There are stairs up and down everywhere, but why bother when you can sketch around on this thing? I asked Kai if he wears a helmet and he said, "Well, I wear a hat." Tisk tisk.

Bromance at first sight.

And a final sendoff for now. Hopefully you've seen some pictures of the epic sunsets here. Believe it or not, the background of this shot is actually one of the most incredible sunsets I've ever seen, although you wouldn't know it since the camera in my phone is apparently optimized to take fluorescent pinks and bright blues and wash them out into the silvery-whitish mess you see here. Nonetheless, an instant classic

Moriah, Abby, Bay, Rebecca, Josefine, Sophie, and Olivia enjoying another great home cooked meal out on their porch.

New Kids in Town

Today was the first day of skiing for the U14s, and the 5th day for the U16s. It was much colder and windier today - we did not need to throw salt. The snow held up great until around 11am when the wind finally died down and the sun came out in force.

Some of the U16s who skied at the June camp got into stubbies on their own lane. I'm pretty sure I heard Kirk say, "That was one of the best days of Slalom training!"

The other U16s and U14s had their own lane for technical free skiing and drill work.

Claudia, Coach Corey, Julia, Coach Tory, Lili

Andrew, Julia, Raph, Patrick, Corey, Jennette, Maggie, Gray, Jack L.

The clouds were cool today, below us and Mt. Jefferson sticking out above. Connor and Jack L.

Rafting the Deschutes

On our day off the U16s took on the Deschutes River starting in Maupin. It was an 11 mile, 2.5 hour float. It was super fun and a perfect day for it. When we drove into town it was 93 degrees! (Govy was about 70 degrees.)

If you go to the link below you can see our photos. It brings you to page 33 and the Burke rafting photos are on pages 23-46. We had three rafts.

http://imperial.photoreflect.com/store/Orderpage.aspx?pi=0FW7019N0A0032&po=32&pc=98

The photo numbers are: 3848-3870

Here's the crew ready to go:

Hood Day 4 - Core with Ève & Study Hall

After another good day of skiing, the afternoon was filled with a tough core workout led by Ève. Ève is here working with Kirk and the U16 girls, fresh off years with the Canadian National Team and World Cup racing. We are lucky to have her!

Partway through the workout after some groaning and moaning, one of the guys jokingly asked, "When does the real workout start?"

Side planks

Hamstring strength

"the sewing machine"

Partner exercises are always fun

"the nose breakers" (hamstrings crushers)

We have also been doing study hall each afternoon in the Hucks dining hall.

Finally, there's been lots of chill time outside. The weather has been so nice and I'm pretty sure these swings haven't stopped swinging. 

Mount Hood August 16, 2014

On a sunny, warm day Christin ran the boys through an agility and strength circuit. 

The warm up

Christin does the explaining

Matt runs the course

Andrew

Jack Beney

Jack Lorenze

Shamus tries again:

Hood Day 3 - Trillium Lake

The skiing was great again today. The athletes are focusing really well and we've been pleased with their progress after just three days on snow.

But on a hot day at Mt. Hood, a swim at Trillium Lake was the way to go! 

Kelsey, Tatum, Jennette, Maddy

 Out for a swim