Valhalla, I Am Here!

I took three flights, traveled for two days, crossed an ocean, and covered thousands of miles- to end up where? From the looks of things, right back in Montana.

The sky is huge and the dirt is deep-brown single track, a rich vein of decomposed pine needles. The trees on top of the towering granite hills are the only things big enough to scrape the sky and sleep comes easy every night to the white-noise of a raging white-water river right out the back door.

If I were to come down with short term memory loss and forget how I got here, it would be completely reasonable at first glance to say, without a doubt, yes, this is Montana. However, upon closer inspection I might pick up on a few slight differences. Take, for example, the cheese. There is cheese set out during every meal, and judging from the depth and quality of the selection, there is only one conclusion- I am in Europe. America simply could not begin to fathom so much cheese. It would be like in the movies and us human meet the aliens and we’re all like, “Tell us everything!”, and they’re all like, “No! It would be too much for you to handle”. That’s like how Europe is with cheese. So that, paired with how the second I turned on the TV I was greeted by a commercial for Swix ski wax which sounded like it was being narrated by two arguing Vikings, all I would have to do is put two and two together.  

I’m not in Montana, I’m in Norway! And from what I’ve seen, it’s almost as cool.

This is my second trip to Europe this summer, and I’d like to say that it’s becoming routine and I’m getting used to it, but, as always, it’s felt like anything but routine and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get to a point where flying halfway across the world doesn’t get the butterflies going. Not that I was nervous and apprehensive for the trip, I just had the butterflies in that, “I’m flying halfway across the world!” kind of way.

The flights really couldn’t have gone smoother. At the very start of my day a very nice worker for Delta upgraded me to a premium seat for the flight to Minneapolis (I guess all the other “seats were taken”) and she also put me in an exit row for the long flight home form Amsterdam back to Minneapolis (which for a long femur-ed freak like myself, is just about as good as it gets).

My itinerary was easy with only one stop in Minneapolis before Europe. I had a short layover in Amsterdam where I was happy to run into a few friends from the Canadian team, and then made the beautiful flight to Olso. I could tell from just looking out the plane that I was probably going to like it here.

 

However, it wasn’t till I de-boarded and smelled that Scandinavian air that my heart started booming with the power of Odin’s thunder. My friend and teammate Carson said it was like Jesus’s breath. I don’t know about that, but the air is beyond good here. It’s clean and rich with the smell of pine trees and water and good ol’ northern hemisphere cleanliness. So much different from other places I’ve been in Europe, that smell, like… well, they smell like that whole sewage issue they had going on in the dark-ages never quite got resolved. 

Anyway, once in Oslo I met up with the rest of team USA and we boarded our charter bus to Hafjell.  I have to admit, after traveling for close to 24 hours, I wasn’t super excited for the two hour bus drive, but as it turned out I wouldn’t have waned it any other way. It was a great way to explore the countryside and also get to know or at least reconnect with my teammates.

In no time at all we’d made it to Lillihammer, the sight of the 1994 winter Olympics. I always love visiting past Olympic areas. Whether it’s the ski jumps in the distance or just a symbol on a building it’s cool to be someplace that was once home to such a prestigious event. Hafjell was the sight of the alpine events in ’94 so the Olympic sights just continued the entire way up the valley.

Once we arrived in Hafjell and made it to our hotel, we were assigned our roommates. I’m in a six bed apartment with my friends and fellow XC racers Garret and Carson, as well as some super rad downhill juniors. It’s been pretty fun educating each other on our different disciplines. For instance, we XC’ers are going to teach the downhillers how to shave their legs, while the DH’ers are going to show us how the triple the dirt jumps. It works out great!

So far I’ve been able to do four laps on the course. The first one contained a good fifteen minutes of me going, “Come on! You can ride that! Is this the world championships of mountain biking or world championships of being a weenie?” to myself. The second was a bit faster, but was mainly filled with me riding at dangerously slow speeds while talking myself down the trail, “Ok, front wheel there, back wheel will follow- oh, I’m slipping! I’m going to die. This is it. Please, not right now! I haven’t even tried Lutefisk yet! Oh, I made it? I’m alive? I’m alive!” Repeat. Speed and confidence slowly but surely increased and by the fourth lap everything was just condensed to a simple, “Yahoo!”

That pretty much sums up my first couple days here in Euroland’s Canada. The riding- amazing. The food- gourmet (more on that tomorrow). The accommodations- breathtaking. I’ve taken a picture of this same outlook on the walk down to the dining hall every time I go by. I just can’t stop. It gets more and more beautiful every time.   

I got it upon arrival…

In the evening…

And this morning, just to be safe…

Also, when you’re staying in the same hotel as the host nation, you know you’re in the right spot.

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me on my way here. I’m proud to be racing here for the US, but I’m honored to be racing here for Montana.

And if, by chance, anyone runs into my parents and you could tell them that I’m not still waiting in the customs line in Amsterdam that would be great.