Rogla to Valdidentro

Pat just put up a blog with a bunch of pictures and recap of our week in Rogla, Slovenia, check it out here if you haven’t yet!

At the risk of being slightly redundant, I want to share some cool photos from the men’s 30k on Sunday, our drive to Italy where we stopped at Bled Castle, and some pictures of the awesome scenery in Valdidentro where we are now. We race a 2.5k/3.3k skate prologue tomorrow, and then a classic individual on Saturday and skate pursuit on Sunday. Last weekend in Rogla I was working through some tough jet lag and left over fatigue from the Birkie, so I’m excited for a clean slate. The sun is shining in Italy, the views are spectacular, and the food is molto buona! It was nice to have the trails in Valdidentro to ourselves for a few days, but the other teams arrived today and it’s beginning to feel like go-time.

Men’s 30k Mass Start in Rogla on Sunday. The field here is extremely competitive; this lead pack stayed together for most of the race. This is about 3 laps in to the 6 lap race

Sun Valley ladies cheering their teammates up one of the tougher hills

Miles Havlick from SVSEF in the mix, probably about 10th place in this picture

Tyler Kornfield from APU

The sun did come out for our last few days in Rogla! Here’s Rosie Brennan, Annie Pokorny, Becca Rorabaugh, and Erika Flowers soaking it up.

Bled Castle was probably my favorite part of Slovenia. Aside from the gorgeous views, I loved that the friars still practiced traditional methods of typography and wine-making. There was even a place where you could bottle your own wine! It was quite the experience. I didn’t get any wine (I’m waiting until Italy) but it definitely had an authentic feel with the oak barrels sitting in a musty cave.

Tower at Bled Castle with mountains in the background, actually I think those peaks are pretty close to where the biathletes raced in Pokljuka last weekend.

From the castle you can see a church out in the middle of the lake. According to the friar at the castle, the lake usually has around 15 cm of ice, enough to support the weight of a car. Brian Gregg was here for World Junior’s a few years back and said he was able to run out to the church from land. This is the first year that the lake didn’t freeze at all.

And now we’re in Italy, with 360 beautiful mountain panoramas and plenty of sunshine! Life is good

This area has been pounded with snow this year! Also, if you look closely you can see the layer of reddish dust on the snow. This apparently blows in from the Sahara (no joke) and it’s a big problem in the Alps because it rapidly accelerates snow melt.

This cool trail starts right from the door of our hotel and traverses along the mountain side. There are snowed-in huts all along it, and tons of people were skinning up it while we were walking. Everyone here agrees this would be an awesome place to go backcountry skiing.

Part of the OPA crew:, L to R trip leader Bryan Fish, myself, Miles Havlick, Tyler Kornfield, and Ben Saxton

We’ll try to keep you updated on how the races go this weekend, but in the meantime the FIS website should have results up shortly after each race. We only have 4 more days in Italy and we are trying to enjoy every last minute. Thanks for reading, ciao!