Summertime Rolls - Part 3

The Skiwolves fled Anchorage months ago, scattered to the far ends of the earth for the summer. About half of them went to Norway and the other half to Canadia. One lone Skiwolf went home to Lake Tahoe in California, but it seems that's where all the action's been this summer, with his family's house serving as the UAA Ski Team's auxiliary training center and boarding house. First, Espen stopped in for a couple of weeks before flying to Oslo for the remainder of the summer. Next, it was Sigurd and Magnus who arrived, to spend the bulk of the summer in the Sierras with JC and the local training group. No sooner did Siggi fly back to Alaska last week when Astrid and the Tuvas arrived in Tahoe to find out what all the fuss was about. 

Despite all the personnel changes at Casa Schoonmaker, one thing has remained constant. Every Skiwolf who's spent any time in Tahoe this summer has had opportunities to go out training with Brandon Herhusky.  That's because Brandon, who's also from the Lake Tahoe area, has been hard at work preparing his mind and body for his new job as assistant nordic coach for the Harvard Ski Team! I hope we'll get to see Brandon at the NCAA Championships next March in Utah, even if he is wearing Harvard red instead of Seawolf green.

Meanwhile, here in Anchorage it's been just the coaches holding down the fort. Toom was generous enough to take me out for a hike this morning at Alyeska Resort. As I headed back to Anchorage afterward to rest and recuperate for the next few days, I saw Toom pulling his bike out to go for a long afternoon ride. And then another hike up Alyeska was on his schedule for the evening. 

We did have some excitement here in Anchorage a few days ago when word got out that former Seawolves Steffi and Karl Schauer were in town for a visit from Germany. So a bunch of Seawolves from around the 2008-2012 years got together for a little reunion at Trond's house on the Hillside. It was like nothing had changed!

Here, Laura and Steffi's children, who are younger than Trond's children, are learning from their elders how to play with fire.

Trond and Laura

The party got so crazy that we forgot all about taking any pictures until a lot of the group had already left. But here are a few who were still hanging around when the camera came out:  Trond Flagstad, Laura McKnown (Rombach), Steffi Schauer (Hiemer), Karl Schauer, Jaime Bronga, me, and Toomas Kollo. All except Toomas were on this team ten years ago. Toomas, was, of course, just a little baby back then.

Although they had left the premises the time we remembered to pull out the camera, we were also joined by Kelsey Boardman (Coolidge), Lex Treinen, Sadie Maubet Bjornsen, Max Treinen and Paul Schauer. It was so nice to see everyone again!