As my friend Lucy recently told me, ski racing is all about the friendships you make along the way. And so it was that we found ourselves in Uncle Kevin’s on-again, off-again hometown last week. I’d been eagerly looking forward to seeing young Finnigan working his magic on the slalom hill, but it was an unexpected surprise when Uncle Kevin was free and willing to show us coaches around Sun Valley’s various trail systems. True to its name, Sun Valley was sunny, and with snow depth at 150% of average, our afternoon explorations of Ketchum’s copious corduroy were blissful. I’d forgotten that Kevin had spent several winters “looking for trouble, and finding it” in Ketchum thirty-plus years ago. No wonder he seemed to know all the secret spots.
On our last day before returning to Alaska, even Little Brother Finnegan came out to shred some corduroy with us. After a full week of alpine racing (starting at the back of the field as a first-year FIS skier with 999.99 FIS points, but winning runs and finishing among the top ten), he’d wanted to finish the week off with some Nordic racing at the SuperTour. But his doctor advised against it, on account of his recently broken elbow which hadn’t yet fully healed. Nevertheless, he made it out for some post-race touring with the boys in the afternoon sun.
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