by Thomas O’Harra After the races last weekend in the Czech Republic, we packed everything up and drove ten hours through five different countries to end in Campra, Switzerland. After the smog of Kazakhstan and the general gloom of Czech, Switzerland is a veritable paradise. I did not have great races at Nove Mesto for a couple of reasons. I think that the gloominess of the place that we were staying at coupled with sitting around all the time and not getting enough to eat led to me having very low energy levels going into the races. Subsequently, I didn’t perform very well, certainly not as well as I had…

by Thomas O’Harra Hello all, Thomas again… So, last weekend (Sunday the 7th) I raced the relay at Junior World Championships. I was the scramble leg, which means I raced first. It was a 5km classic race, and it started fast. I held onto the leaders as long as I could, and then died really hard, at about 3.5km. I lost several places and dropped back to 11th, but I am happy with being able to ski with the leaders for as long as I did. It was a lot of fun, and I am really excited to come back next year and try and hold onto the leaders for…

by Nick Jenkins It all began at a Halloween party in 2012. I (Nick) was dressed as a vintage mountaineer and Sean was an incredibly convincing Chewbacca. We were talking about classes we planned to take the following semester and I told Sean about a directed study I was developing where I filmed and edited a feature-length ski movie. Sean, who had always been my primary backcountry skiing partner, jumped at the idea immediately and we sealed our newly formed partnership with a disgusting jello shot. For the next few months we scrambled to get all the necessary paperwork pushed through the university and filed with the state. Since we…

by Thomas O’Harra So, we’ve been in Kazakhstan for about a week now, and I have to say, this place is crazy (also a note on the title, I figured that it was only a matter of time before someone said it). Not in a bad crazy, either. It is just… different here. Personally I have no background in Russian or Kazakh (which are very similar) or any other Cyrillic languages, so walking down the street I feel very lost. Also, the drivers are worse than L.A. and Chicago combined, and it seems like using your horn is expected rather than frowned upon. That said, everyone that I’ve talked to…

First published in the Anchorage Press. [divider] On Sunday, January 18th, Alaska Pacific University student, Dasan Marshall fell to his death on the North Face of Mount Yukla. Marshall was scouting a section of a route in a couloir when he slipped and fell 1,000 feet down the face. An avid climber and explorer from Portland, Oregon, Dasan Marshall had been living in Alaska since 2012. Marshall had been attending his last semester at Alaska Pacific University (APU) to complete his Bachelor’s degree in Outdoor Studies and working on his senior project that involved starting an alpine club for the student community at APU. The following tribute to Dasan was…

by Thomas O’Harra So, on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week (the 3rd and 4th, respectively), I had my first two races of the championships. Tuesday’s race was a classic sprint, and Wednesday’s race was a 10K skate individual start. For those who don’t know, a sprint race is rather confusing to someone who hasn’t seen it in action before. The day starts out with an individual start time trial around the course, with racers going every 15 seconds. Then, the people who post the top 30 times advance on to heats. This starts out with the quarterfinals, which are five heats of six people. The two fastest skiers from…

by Thomas O’Harra So, it seems that I’ve found myself in Almaty, Kazakhstan. I’m writing this from more than halfway across the globe, sitting in a hotel room that is literally held together with packing tape. I first heard about this place when I attended the Junior World Ski Championships last winter in Italy. After some disappointing results there, I turned my attention to Almaty. Knowing that it was there—and that I definitely had a good chance at making the team—motivated me during training over the summer and fall. In retrospect, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Almaty is a city of 1.6 million people (I…

by Evan Nasse Most people, in general, do not often measure themselves in terms of success. I have found that often times those that I know and those around me measure themselves in terms relative to the success of others, particularly their closest peers and those whom are already successful in fields they strive for or admire. When I finally began realizing my talent with words and writing, I constantly found myself researching the backgrounds of published authors and produced screenwriters, a habit I still occasionally find myself doing as I get lost in a wikipedean spiral of fascination and selfdoubt. This is entirely the wrong approach, and I will…

by Gus Barber To live is a verb. It is an action, a movement, something that happens. Yet it seems that there are not many people actively living. This is a strange concept, as we all breathe and continue to exist, but I mean living in a sense that many people do not seem to embrace. Our collective society has moved into a mindset that is constantly preoccupied with what has happened or is going to happen. We must go to school to get a job to support our families–this is the central dogma of suburbia. And in our free time between when we work to get somewhere, we are…

by Brock Fitzgerald Bill Nye the Science Guy once said, “The flying disc is a wonderful thing.” Although mostly known for his bowties and children’s science series, Nye was also heavily involved as an Ultimate Frisbee player in the 1970s. Not only did he play on Cornell’s competitive team during his years there, he would then go on to be a founder and captain of the Seattle Olympic Windjammers, the very first men’s team in Seattle. What is it about this game that interests so many? Perhaps it is the honor of the game in its unassuming nature, or possibly the way the game is organized. No matter what is…