MRT joined forces with TAS (Team Alpental Snoqualmie) to host a summer camp in Portillo, Chile.  We had a total of 19 athletes and 14 parents join us.  This was an incredible experience for athletes and families to travel to South America and experience winter in August.  And boy did winter hit!  

Chile was hit with a massive storm right as we arrived.  They called it the storm of the decade!  This was great for coverage but unfortunately made for difficult travel conditions.  The road to Portillo was closed when we arrived so we decided to go to La Parva to ski.  We were finally able to get to Portillo on Monday Aug 20.  The hotel and staff were amazing and we were able to make the most of our time while we waited for the storm to pass and the resort to open.

We focused on Aalanche training, safety and practical experience.  The kids practiced recovery using beacon, probes and shovels.  We listened to a talk on snow science and Coach Chris from TAS provided a talk on all things ski tuning and maintenance.  We even set up a start and practiced starts and skating while the lifts were still closed. 

By Wednesday we were able to get on a lift and actually ski!  By Thursday the skies had cleared and we had one of the most amazing ski days!  We free skied all of Portillo in the morning - finding stashes of pow, tight chutes and jumps, etc.  In the afternoon, we were able to train some GS.  We even rubbed shoulders with Mikaela Shiffrin as she was also training at Portillo.  

Although our trip didn't go as originally planned, we all made the most of it and ended on a high note!  Thank you to those families and athletes that joined and kept the stoke high.  I hope to be back soon!

Coach Katy

• From Coach Alan:
  "Highlights included 8.5 Ft of snow in 4 days!, great training on the course and off-piste,  hot tubbing with the GOAT ( Mikaela Shiffrin), and not to be outdone the parents experienced some great apres ski events -Chilean wine tasting and pisco sour mixology-. Shout out to coach Katy Loewy and everyone for being adaptable to the challenging storm conditions which made the leads change logistics in a fast and efficient manner."