Smokin'

You may have heard about this thing called global warming...  Alaska's been on fire for months.  It hasn't rained in forever.  It feels like the Mojave Desert around here.  Many people are saying it's a Chinese hoax.

The Swan Lake Fire started on June 5, a little ways south of here.  Without any rain, that fire's just been raging all summer long.  It smells like the inside of a chimney every time the breeze blows from the south.

I have taken up smoking.  Studies have shown that the air you get from a filtered cigarette is less smokey than the air in Anchorage. The UAA Ski Team hasn't taken my advice and hasn't accepted the filtered Marlboros I've been offering. Instead, they've taken to doing their workouts indoors.  We planned to do some intervals outdoors the other day. But when we couldn't see the ground beneath our feet due to the smoke, we decided to do our intervals on the treadmill instead.

Austin, JC and one of the Everetts

Marine (giving advice), Hannah and Natalie

Quail and Anna have bum wheels so they're on bikes

It hasn't been all doom and gloom around here.  We did some bounding on the hillside earlier this week.

I bet you're wondering why Toomas doesn't have ski poles like everyone else. It's because he's a volunteer assistant coach now, so he can do whatever he wants.

Hannah and Natalie

The entire team (alpine and nordic) got together today for a hike around the cirque at Alyeska today.

Climbing Max's at Alyeska

Photo credit: Anna Berecz