This past Thursday I drove home to Maine to do some frantic packing-up/giving away/recycling of stuff in my room at my Dad’s house. It turns out that if you have lived in the same house your entire life (and saved as much stuff as I do) you end up with a lot to clean out when it’s time to move. The cleaning wasn’t too fun but it was great to be home and see my Dad’s new house! On Friday afternoon I headed over to North Conway to meet up with Pepa and Anna for the BKL Festival.
After some shopping with the Queen of Shopping on Friday night it was time to get down to business on Saturday morning. There was a lot of concern about the new venue for the Festival, a place called Stark’s Hill in Fryeburg. Apparently the parking lot was in a junk yard. And it was muddy. And the trails were covered in branches from the previous day’s violent wind storm. I didn’t see the trails on Friday, but I can tell you that by Saturday the venue was absolutely gorgeous. Once you got past the entrance and walked up the trail to the stadium, you were greeted by snow covered, well-groomed trails set among towering pines. Many enthusiastic and tireless volunteers were available to keep the chaos (somewhat) controlled. In short, the organizers did an amazing job with what was certainly a stressful situation.
Having started skiing at the age of 17, I had never had the reason or opportunity to attend a BKL Festival. It was amazing. The sheer numbers of kids out there skiing and loving it was awesome to see. I was so happy to be a part of such a fun event and it was great to see our BKLers racing hard in their biggest event of the year. Congrats to everyone on a great job! Also, it is nothing short of a miracle that the starters, parents, and coaches are able to get all those kids around the course in what appeared to be a very organized fashion. Very impressive.
Photos will do the day more justice…
The beach themed parade
Ani's creative use of a busted beach ball
Most of the NEVT gang…
More of the NEVT gang…
The racing commences
The guy in the skirt is the starter. He must have lost his voice by the end of the day but he did an amazing job getting hundreds of kids in line at the right time.
After the racing I headed back to Vermont to get ready for the Stowe Derby on Sunday. Update on that soon!
