USCSA's aka The Bend Blizzard

This year, we traveled to Bend, Oregon for US College Nationals. We fought through altitude and more snow than we have ever seen in MN to 1) find the trailhead and 2) race! It was an absolute joy to see so much snow.

St. Olaf killed it at USCSA’s with 10 top 10 finishes! As we all know, 10 is better than 6. Before the racing started, we got to explore the beautiful Smith Rock State Park. Brochman ran while we walked. We also took our first trip up to Mt. Bachelor and were met with more snow than most of us had ever experienced before.  Over the next week the mountain received about 4 feet of new snow, making for some soft conditions during the races.  

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The parking lot snow pile. No wonder we couldn't find the Nordic Center behind all that snow!
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Smith Rock State Park
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We finally found the mountains when the sun came out on the last day!
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The Women's and Men's USCSA Teams

The first day of racing was the 7.5k classic individual start, which took place in a blizzard. At the awards ceremony we were happily surprised to see two Oles on the podium, with Rose in 10th and Bri in an amazing 2nd place. The guys all skied well, with Ethan in 12th, Tyler in 13th, Leif in 15th, Spencer in 16th, and Matt in 17th. The next day we had an early start and geared up for the skate sprints, which proved to be full of drama.  On the women’s side, our sprint “specialist” Daisy got 4th, with Bri in 6th after a fall due to noisy distractions (BOB!!!) and Rose in 10th.  We were once again surprised at the awards ceremony when Ethan was called up in 7th, despite not being in the B final. The Clarkston coach wasn’t thrilled about this but we managed to work it out. Tyler finished (accurately) in 9th. We then enjoyed a much needed rest day before the 15k skate mass start. After leading most of the race, Bri snagged another 2nd place finish! Daisy was 6th, Rebecca was just out of the top 10 in 11th, Rose was 19th after some misfortunes with her pole, and Liza was 30th. Tyler and Spencer were both top 10 finishing in 8th and 9th, respectively. Leif also had a pole mishap, but Ethan, Matt, and Leif all skied well to get in the top 20 placing in 17th, 18th, and 19th. The final day of competition was a classic team sprint relay in all manner of wintery mix. The men’s team started out strong, and finished in 5th. The women’s team finished second, and has renewed motivation to beat Clarkston next year. After the relays we had fun playing in the snow and listening to some awesome music.

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