Above is a painting by Doug Miller, one of the local Leavenworth artists, of the Ice Lakes area near Wenatchee. Northern Fruit out of Wenatchee has taken over operating the Ice Lakes facility and is excited to kick off their use of the plant with the 2009 crop of gala apples. Just thinking about those crisp Wenatchee Gala apples is making my mouth water. Actually, I did have a nice tart pink lady apple after our bounding intervals this morning. Apples have become my favorite post-workout snack because they're tasty, they travel in my bag without getting mushed, and I'm in a I-don't-eat-packaged-food trend.

After seeing first-hand how Northern runs their Nordic Apples facility in East Wenatchee I'm sure the Ice Lakes facility will be an impressively smooth operation too. Hopefully I'll get to go visit and do some mountain running/hiking next time I'm down in Washington!

Labels: photos, wenatchee

WVNSEF Team at practice on Saturday.

Saturday marked the first day of grooming at the Stemilt Ski Trails! My dad & co. have been working this summer and fall on creating a ski trail up in the hills near Wenatchee for the Wenatchee Valley Nordic Ski Education Foundation to use. It's been a long process of scouting out trails, coordinating with the property owners and the Wenatchee snowmobiling club, cutting out brush, marking the trail, getting a groomer set up, and waiting for snow! I think it's pretty impressive that my dad decided we needed some trails closer to Wenatchee and then made it happen.

Laura Valaas walking the trail this summer.

The same huge ponderosa, cut up and cleared, with TJ Owen walking through with a 12' pole to make sure the trail was wide enough.

It was negative 8 (-9 at the coldest, actually) when we pulled into the parking lot Saturday morning. Which wouldn't be so unusual if it was Celsius, but it was FAHRENHEIT.

The first pass of the groomer around the trail!



Cal Anderson grooming with Peter Valaas riding passenger and providing insight into Nordic grooming techniques. The Apple Country Snowmobiling Club is going to groom and set up their cat with all the Nordic grooming accoutrements. Which I also think is pretty impressive that they're interested and willing to do that.



Some of the WVNSEF athletes enjoying the fresh grooming.

Kristina Owen coming back home to help her mom coach the WVNSEF Team.

Here's to having a vision and making it happen, in whatever endeavor!

p.s. since the trails are on private land I don't think they're officially open to the public so if you want to ski 'em you should check in with someone first.

Labels: photos, wenatchee

Peter Valaas scoping out potential trails

Last time I was home I did some tromping with my dad up around Stemilt Loop Rd. He has schemes for a Nordic ski area up there, which I think is pretty cool. If anyone is in the Wenatchee Valley and wants to get involved go ahead and email me (laura at lauravalaas dot com). I think this will be a pretty big project so I'm sure there's room to help.

Labels: wenatchee

Laura & Susan Valaas

This is my new favorite toy that I don't have. My mom & I took it out on the Columbia River while I was home. It is fast. Just remember to lean left.

Labels: wenatchee

Since Anchorage has been a bleak morass all day I'll share some photos from my hike on Saturday through the Enchantments in the North Cascades with my mom & dad.

Peter Valaas way down below me.

After I took this picture I actually scrambled back along the base of the steep rocky part of the mountain to get back on the trail and in doing so experienced one of the scariest moments of my life because I kicked a rock down the mountain. Here "kicked" means accidentally nudged a slightly-larger-than-football sized rock which happened to be resting its relatively flat side on a relatively flat slope. Anyway, it went over the edge and out of view and I thought, "I'm going to kill someone." Because Asgaard Pass is steep and long and full of other loose rocks and there were at least 15 other hikers coming up below me. I also couldn't see over the edge of the rock face on which I was standing to see where my rock was going. I was reassured to hear my call of "ROCK!" being echoed down below me. I didn't, in the end, kill anyone but in the future I think I'll avoid scrambling when there's people below me.

Susan & Laura Valaas
Peter Valaas
Susan & Peter Valaas

Here my mom is taking a photo (Crystal Lake, I believe). I'm not even sure what my mom looks like because she always has a camera in front of her face. And I don't even have any of multitude of photos she took Saturday. (Mom, send me your best mountain goat photos please.)

Susan & Peter Valaas

My mom is taking a picture of me from across the lake. I am lying on a rock because I am tired of walking slowly and stopping to take pictures at every lake. And I figure I can always catch up.
Susan Valaas

My mom and I are taking simultaneous pictures of each other. I assume there's something scenic behind me. Too bad I'm holding a camera in front of my face too.

Susan Valaas taking a picture of a pretty waterfall with Little Anapurna in the background.

It was a very long day out hiking but the most perfect weather and scenery. I think we spent about 11hrs from trailhead to trailhead.

Labels: photos, wenatchee

Training in Whistler went well. So well that I'm taking a break in Wenatchee and spent most of the day napping trying to kick a cold. Although it hasn't been a completely lazy day since I got up at 5:30 (okay, I didn't actually roll out of bed until 5:45) to go hiking with my mom before she went to work & Kathleen Koos. I swear my mom is in better shape now than I've ever seen her before. It's pretty reassuring to see that you can grow up without slowing down. And my sister was doing a cross country running race so I went to cheer, which means that I did one of those sprint-stop-sprint-stop kind of workouts... I think I hit 9 different spots on the 1.5mile loop (2 loops). Although I suspect she may have found me more irritating than helpful. It did make me grateful that I don't have to go to a full day of classes before an afternoon race, that can't help you run fast.

Back in Whistler there was lots of good training happening. I felt like I became a better skier over the past ten days. Having so many coaches watching and taking video makes it easy to think about your technique while you're training. Not to mention doing laps around the sprint loop with Vordenburg standing on a corner saying, "this is where the Olympic games are going to be happening" every time we skied past. Getting to watch video of myself rollerskiing and being able to compare it to my teammates over the same section of road and see what they were doing better than I made it pretty clear where I needed to improve.

I will say that the US men's team looked really good last week in the time trials and speeds. Their skiing wasn't half bad either.

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guest post by kirsten valaas: "kk is the best ever"

Labels: 2010 Venue, wenatchee

Susan Valaas & Laura Valaas

Saturday was the Apple Blossom parade! I'm posting pictures from the Wenatchee airport but now it's time to board!



Laura Valaas, Stephanie Wade, Tyler Farrar

Laura Valaas, Stephanie Wade, Tyler Farrar

Tyler Farrar, Slipstream/Chipotle Pro Cycling Team

Labels: photos, wenatchee

Looking down into the Wenatchee Valley from Horselake Rd.



My dad & I went on a mountain bike ride on the sage hills trails... back among the sagebrush and wildflowers!

Peter Valaas

Labels: photos, wenatchee

I am back in the lovely Wenatchee Valley this weekend to celebrate the Apple Blossom Festival and I must say the timing couldn't be better-- the cherry blossom trees in our front yard are pullulated with blossoms. I not only got to run in the mountains and row in the river today, I also got to attend the All Service Club Luncheon where I was honored as co-Grand Marshall of the Festival! My co-Grand Marshall is Tyler Farrar. If you follow road cycling I don't have to tell you who Tyler Farrar is. If you don't follow road cycling, Tyler races for Slipstream/Chipotle and is Certifiably Fast. We graduated from WHS together in 2002 and even were on our first and the youngest ever Ridge to River team together in fourth grade so it was good to see Tyler again.

Tyler and I are going to be on the radio stations tomorrow morning starting with 104.7 at 7:40am but other than that our only remaining official duties are to ride in the parade Saturday morning!

It is so nice to back in Wenatchee and a part of such a wonderful festival!

Labels: wenatchee

Kirsten Valaas, Kristina Owen, Tarn Heath, Laura Valaas
I've been doing a bit of what I call social training which is nominally training but really just socializing-- a lot more talking than actually working hard. Saturday I met up with Tarn and KO for a kayak on the Columbia. We ended up going a little too long and getting stuck out on the river after the sun went down. Being in Wenatchee makes me think that it's summertime and I forget that it can be cold in March. I also forget how soaked you get paddling a surfski, even in flat water and therefore forgot to bring a change of clothes. I thought I'd be fine once I got into the car but halfway home I remembered that I was supposed to stop at the grocery store to get some essentials we needed for dinner. So I ended up doing a quick trip through Safeway in my APU spandex with my entire back half drenched in river water.

On Sunday we skied at Stevens Pass and met up with a lot of the other local ski families with whom I grew up skiing. Afterwards we went to the 59er Diner for lunch and I only had spandex with me. I'm starting to think that I'm spending altogether too much time in spandex.

Labels: photos, wenatchee