Recently in Daron Rahlves Category

Catching up with Daron Rahlves in the summer at Mt. Hood requires getting up at 5am to leave Portland. I roll into the parking lot at Timberline around 7am and find Daron ready to head up the lift to the glacier. It's a good three hours before the Windell's campers will begin to trickle onto the lifts and everywhere you look it's skin-tight race suits. In my baggy pants, plaid shirt, and twin-tip, I'm definitely the odd man out. With snow still frozen from the night, I skid turn like a maniac in an effort to keep up with Daron. It only takes a few seconds to realize it's a lost cause. Fortunately, the little racers gawk and yell at Daron in the liftline and slow him down enough for me to catch up. After a few thigh-burning runs, we sit down at the top.

How's it to be back at Mt. Hood in the summer?

It's my first time at Mt. Hood in I'd say about 8 years. I used to come up for US Ski Team and summer camps way before that. It's good to get a lot of mileage in, do some gate training on snow, but it's a place that's hard. There's not a lot of variety for racing and the runs are pretty short. That's why I decided to stay away from Hood for a while, but now it's refreshing to get back up here. It's July 24th and we're on snow. Not a bad life. I wish I'd been up here in June this year. I heard there was so much snow they were skiing down to Govy (Government Camp), which is insane. That'd be some vertical to ski. The guys I grew up racing with are running the camps now. Lot's of kids up here too, lots from Tahoe. I know a bunch of the kids, or the coaches at least, and it's inspiring to see them up here flying down the mountain with big smiles on their face.