Catching Up

Let me start by saying it has been too long since my last article--196 days exactly-- but who’s counting. Over the summer I have really missed blogging, and I’m glad to start doing it once again. But, I have been up to a lot this summer so let me start there...

As you may remember from my last blog, I made the decision to join the Stratton Mountain School Ski team this year. I left home on May 19 and moved out to southern Vermont.

Though it may seem a lot different than the south metro I’ve grown up in, the mountains of New England don’t seem too far from home. Vermont reminds me a lot of northern Minnesota, with the only difference being the elevation changes -- by which I mean that there actually are elevation changes in Vermont. Other than that, it’s much the same with lots of forests and lakes, though none are quite as beautiful as the ones in the Midwest.

Training has been an incredible adventure so far, and I’ve made some big steps forward. The PG coach at Stratton is Gus Kaeding, a former CXC athlete and then coach. Through a combination of intelligence, tough love and strong support he has helped me immensely this summer and fall and I’m looking forward to reaping the benefits this winter.

My biggest helpers this summer were undoubtedly my teammates. Besides working with the whole SMS school team, I have been lucky enough to work with the Stratton Mountain T2 team, a professional squad based out of Stratton and also coached by Gus. There were 4 men and 4 women there this summer. The guys were Andy Newell, Simi Hamilton, Eric Packer, and Skyler Davis. The ladies were Annie Pokorny, Jessie Diggins, Erika Flowers and Sophie Caldwell. If you want to learn more about those guys, all of their names link to their blogs (and we all think Annie’s is especially fantastic). Getting pushed so hard by those guys every day this summer has helped me a lot; they are all World Cup level skiers and we push each other accordingly.

I got lucky enough to travel around and go to a few different camps during the summer and fall. I was part of the Eastern REG camp in June, which was held at Stratton. In August I traveled out to Park City Utah for a camp with the National Training Group, and shortly after I returned from that I got to go to the USST camp in Lake Placid at the Olympic training center. Then in October, we headed out on a three week odyssey in Park City and then up to Canmore to ski Frozen Thunder!

Well, that was my summer, and my fall too! I promise it was far more exciting than I made it seem, but there are far too many details to fit in just one blog post.

We are now out West in Yellowstone, in fact our first ski was just this morning. There will be far better and more frequent updates in the future I promise, and I hope you will enjoy keeping up with me and my teammates on our travels. Until next time, thanks for reading!

About the author... Former Minnesota State and Junior National Champion Ben Saxton has begun a second PG year at Stratton Mountain School. His trip to World Juniors last year inspired him to keep chasing his dream of making the US Ski Team and achieve international success. As an athlete forgoing the traditional collegiate path he hopes to share stories and thoughts about training, racing, and the skiing lifestyle to keep up with everyone at home as he travels the Supertour circuit and hopefully the World.