Black Jack Senior Team has just returned from a stunning two week altitude training camp at Nickel Plate Nordic. The early season tracks at Nickel Plate on November 13th were next to none. Big thanks to Murray Farbridge and Nickel Plate Nordic for the excellent work in getting top shape trails right from the get go. Nickel Plate has always had a special place in my heart, since this is the club where I learned to ski. Murray was the one that got me into skiing in 2005 on their junior race team.

Over 30km of pristine early season trails

After a large snowfall partway through the camp, the club was able to open up a large portion of their trails; offering us over 30km of fresh tracks on pristine corduroy each morning.  Our accommodation at the Nickel Plate lodge provided us with warm and comfortable living. We even had the luxury of walking two steps out the door onto the ski trails! The most beneficial part about staying here is the elevation of 1950 metres, and the positive effect that this has on enhancing our training.

Our home during #nickelnarnia

During the camp we had the opportunity to chat with the local racing team about training and competing, and also go for a fun ski with the Telemark Racers.

Most of our training these past couple weeks consisted of long, aerobic training sessions with periodic short, hard sprints. Training days usually ranged from 4 to 5.5 hours duration.

Beautiful sunset skiing at Nickel Plate

With the race season fast approaching we are ramping up the intensity at the Black Jack ski tracks in Rossland! Keep a look out for our next blog post after the Canmore NorAm next week. See you on the trails!!

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~David Palmer