Wow! This is the third time we have enjoyed the Sunnyside Luau event as part of the Snow Fest. Sunnyside Restaurant and staff were all in the Hawaiian spirit with decorations and clothing. In addition each guest is presented with a lei upon arrival. The feast is an all you can eat buffet including sashimi, sushi rolls, poke, mahi mahi, skirt steak, and coconut shrimp just to name a few. And you have to save room for dessert because they offer pineapple upsidedown cake and their famous Hula Pie. It was delicious. Adding to the flavor of the food is the fun of the community comradie. We always see friends we know and enjoy the time to catch up while filling our plates. If you haven’t attended the Sunnyside Luau before, put it on your to do list for next year.
Sunnyside’s Snow Fest Luau
March 8th, 2010Snow Fest’s Wacky Winter Human Bowling
March 7th, 2010In an effort to be actively enjoying the Snow Fest winter carnival we decided to partake in one of the events this morning. The 4th annual Wacky Winter Human Bowling put on by the folks at Tahoe City Golf Course. We chose to skip our usual weekend ski day at Squaw and join the local fun in Tahoe City. Under the bright blue Tahoe skies, on a nice slope near the Tahoe City Golf Course club house, 10 inflatable Bozo the Clown bowling pins were set into the snow. Each team had 3 members with one run each to gather the most Bozo pin hits. Our team, Squaw Strikers, composed of Ron, myself and our five year old son, collected the most accumulative pins down and won the event! What a fun way to spend the morning!
Snow Fest Winter Carnival Kicks Off in Squaw Valley
March 5th, 2010Tonight starts the 29th annual Snow Fest Winter Carnival. Talk about a fun community tradition, the Snow Fest days of celebration bring fun for the whole family to all parts of the community. Tonight Squaw Valley hosts the torchlight parade, fireworks and kick off party. Check out the calendar for the schedule of events. Some of my favorites include the snow sculpting contest at River Ranch, the Luau at Sunnyside, The Great Ski Race and the Extreme Food Challenge at Mamasake. Enjoy the fun as a participant or a spectator.
Freeride World Tour: Tram Face
March 2nd, 2010Once again the Freeride World Tour came to Squaw Valleywith hopes of skiing the Tram Face. The comp was slated for Sunday, but a big slide made the comp organizers decide to move the event to Monday on Silverado. Check out the Freeride World Tour website for a video of the slide and athlete comments. As well as results of Monday’s competition. Hats off to all the athletes, good luck as the tour continues.
Travis Ganong Clinches U.S. Downhill Title
March 1st, 2010On the tails of the US Ski team successes at the Olympics, here is some exciting news for Travis Ganong, one of our local athletes. Travis is having successes as he strides to fulfill his skiing dreams. Check out this article we received.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
Tom Kelly, tkelly@ussa.org
Author of Story:Elizabeth Karam
Ganong Clinches U.S. Downhill Title
ASPEN, CO (Feb. 27) – Travis Ganong (Olympic Valley, CA) clinched the U.S. Alpine Championships downhill title on Saturday morning in Aspen. Ganong topped an impressive field of U.S. Ski Team members and Olympians including Steven Nyman (Sundane, UT), who finished second.
For the past several days, Aspen has been hosting NorAm Cup speed races with great weather and snow conditions. After holding several training runs and a pair of NorAm races on the hill, the course held up for the racers to compete for the downhill title.
“The weather was great, a little overcast but good visibility,” said Ganong. “The track was amazing. It was super smooth, really good conditions.”
Ganong, as well as the rest of the field, used the NorAm Cup training runs and races as valualbe time on the track before Saturday’s title showdown.
“Every run you go down the hill, you get more comfortable with the track,” said Ganong. “Every run helps.”
Ganong edged out Nyman by a mere four hundredths, crowning him the 2010 U.S. downhill champion. Canada’s Jan Hudec snuck into third, grabbing the final spot on the podium. Will Brandenburg (Spokane, WA) fresh off an impressive 11th in the Olympic super combined, and Chris Beckmann (Guildlander, NY) rounded out the top five in fourth and fifth.
The top juniors were Brennan Rubie (Salt Lake City, UT) and Ben Morse (Carabbassett Valley, ME). Rubie finished 19th overall followed by Morse in 23.
Ganong, along with many of the U.S. Alpine Ski Team members, will be heading to Europe for World Cup races within the next couple of days. Ganong hopes to carry his success across the ocean for the races in Norway.
“As far as confidence goes, I came into the season as an invitee and just had a lot of motivation to fire my skiing, which really helped me to get to where I am now, ” explained Ganong. “Hopefully my confidence can carry over from here to there.”
Whiteface Mountain in Lake Placid, NY will host the remaining disciplines for the U.S. Alpine Championships’ at the end of March.
OFFICIAL RESULTS
U.S. Alpine Championships
Aspen, CO
February 27, 2010
Men’s Downhill
1. Travis Ganong, Olympic Valley, CA, 1:35.67
2. Steven Nyman, Sundance, UT, 1:35.71
3. Jan Hudec, Canada, 1:35.81
4. Will Bradenburg, Spokane, WA, 1:36.40
5. Chris Beckmann, Guildlander, NY, 1:36.54
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9. Scott Macartney, Crystal Mountain, WA, 1:37.10
12. Joe Swensson, Niantic, CT, 1:37.51
14. Colby Granstrom, Lake Stevens, WA, 1:37.95
DNF: Nick Daniels, Tahoe City, CA, Will Gregorak, Longmont, CO
# # #
Our condolences to C.R.Johnson’s family
February 26th, 2010The communities of Tahoe, Truckee and Squaw Valley are mourning once again for the loss of an amazing local athlete. On February 24, we lost C.R. Johnson, a long time local and Squaw Valley skier. Reports say he was enjoying the powder mother nature had dumped and while doing something he loved he lost his life. C.R. reportedly was skiing down the Light Towers, the rocky outcropping skier’s right of the Slot, his ski got caught on a rock and he went head first into a rocks below.
Though I did not personally know C.R., I know his family and feel for them as they had spent the last several years nursing C.R. thur recovery,both physically and emotionally, after his last major accident. The community is mourning this loss and it makes me think of the last few years. We, as a community, have lost quite a few… Shane McConkey, Randy Davis and ski patroller Andrew Entin to name a few. Is this something that happens in all communities, or is it more here because we live in an area where higher risk sports are enjoyed on a daily basis? In either case it is a loss and we send our good wishes to the Johnson family.
My interview with KCRA news on Olympic Zone
February 26th, 2010So the Olympics have been ongoing the last two weeks. Ron and I have been getting much less sleep than usual as we can’t seem to turn the TV off during the late evening coverage. I just love seeing the athletes fulfill their dreams by being at the Olympics. Some of the events I really look forward to, mostly the skiing ones and others I enjoy seeing because I just to get to see them except for during the Winter Olympics. The Olympic spirit has been high here in Squaw Valley as quite a few of the athletes are from Squaw Valley, Tahoe and Truckee. It is especially exciting that our home town girl, Julia Mancuso, won two Silver medals.
Each evening before the prime time Olympic coverage, the KCRA Chanel 3 news out of Sacramento has been doing a live show at the Resort at Squaw Creek called the Olympic Zone. The show includes highlights of the Olympics and then segments on locals somehow related to winter sports and or the Olympics. I was interviewed earlier this week as a former ski cross competitor. The 2010 Olympic Games marks the debut for the ski cross event. It is an exciting sport where 4 skiiers race down a course full of air features and banked turns with the fastest two advancing to the next round. This year there were no American women competing at the Olympics in ski cross.
Mae Fesai, of KCRA news, decided to do a story on me because of my past successes in the sport. Back in 2000 and 2001, I took a gold medal at the Winter Gravity Games and silver and bronze at the X-Games. Here is the interview video they showed earlier this week during this Olympic Zone show. It was a bit of a Hollywood experience. Enjoy the clip.
Olympic successes!
February 23rd, 2010“Currently, Team USA has won 25 medals (seven gold, eight silver, and ten bronze) at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. That total matches the number of medals won at the Torino 2006 Winter Games. With one more medal, the United States will set a record for the most medals won at an Olympic Winter Games not held on US soil.
Anyone who registers on Teamusa.org will have access to the latest info and will receive exclusive updates throughout the rest of the games. http://teamusanews.org”
This is a portion of an email I received from the Team USA News coordinator this morning. Check out their site for the lastest updates.
Queen of Hearts Annual Luncheon
February 19th, 2010On Wednesday, the Queen of Hearts Women’s Fund held their annual luncheon at the Resort at Squaw Creek. The Queen of Hearts is an group of women who all donated $1000, created a fund of over $1,000,000. The annual proceeds from the fund are donated back into the community, usually to non profit organizations. I was on the committee again this year to plan this wonderful event. The day started with a ski clinic where fellow Queens shared a few tips and techniques of skiing. About 30 “Queens” gathered to enjoy a beautiful blue bird ski day.
Skiing Queens
The luncheon portion of the day was held at the Resort at Squaw Creek where approximately 300 women from the community gathered for the event. The afternoon included a wonderful lunch highlighted by the key note speakers, Bob and Lee Woodruff. Bob Woodruff, former ABC World News anchor suffered severe brain injuries while doing a story in Iraq four years ago. Bob and his wife Lee spoke about their experiences and their road to recovery, both physically and emotionally. They have a great sense of humor and play off each other nicely creating a wonderful vibe in the room. Their take home message was the three F’s, family, faith and friends, are what get you through devastating times. This, coupled with the comment from Lee, to live in the moment as much as possible were the comments that struck a cord with me. To conclude the afternoon, Bob and Lee signed their books for the Queens, one they worked on together and one by Lee. We were grateful to have had the Woodruffs share a lunch with us and glad they could enjoy such a wonderful ski week in our community. Here’s the link for the Sierra Sun article about their visit.
Bob and Lee Woodruff
Congratulations to Julia Mancuso!
February 18th, 2010Our Squaw Valley hometown girl, Julia Mancuso, takes the Silver medal for the women’s downhill in Vancouver. This is Julia’s second Olympic medal as she also brought home a gold from the Torino Games. Everyone is Squaw Valley is routing for her continued success in Vancouver. Before heading off to Vancouver, she came home for a few days and took time out of her day to ski a run with the Mighty Mite Team. It was great seeing a couple hundred little helmet heads follow her down the mountain run. That has made the excitement about Julia even greater as all the little ones at Squaw are routing for her just as much as the rest of us. The Visa commercial during the Olympics has been fun to see… her childhood drawing comes to life as it becomes her reality. The community of Squaw Valley and the race team family are very proud of Julia Mancuso.
