Bormio 2010 DH Travis Ganong

Austria Pre-Christmas

After Val Gardena, but before Christmas we had a "mimi-camp" training SG and GS in Hinterreit, Austria!  I figured out some good stuff in my skiing and with my equipment, and it was great to bring some training intensity right before Christmas.  Here are some photos from there.  We mostly skied, but also had time to go rodeling in Saafelden, as well as catch up on some Christmas shopping!

Lederhosen Store!!!

Cows watching us train! (Notice the cool cow brush that this cow is brushing him/herself with)

Departing for Christmas. Most of the team went strait to Bormio, but I headed to Kirkberg to spend Christmas with my girlfriend...

P.S.  Rodeling Video as well as photos from Christmas are coming soon!

Travis Ganong Interview - Val Gardena, Italy downhill

Italy- Val Gardena, the Cella Ronda and Alta Badia...Ted Wins Again!!!!!

After our races in Val Gardena down the famed Sasslong, Steve Nyman and myself along with our tour guide "Babbs", decided to ski part of the Cella Ronda and ski from our hotel in Val Gardena over the pass to Alta Badia to watch the US GS team rip over there!!!  We woke up early and walked down to the first lift that whisked us away up and over the first amazing ridge of mountains.  The snow was fun to ski, nothing special... (I cant wait to get back to Tahoe and ski some deep soft powder at Squaw!)

Leaving our hotel in Val Gardena at the start of the Cella Ronda- Destination: Alta Badia

From left to right: Random Italian dude, "Babbs", "Sven", and "Traa"

This was the view that greeted us at the top of our first pass.. although this picture does not give it justice at all... Imagine rocky spired peaks like these in formation 360 degrees all around!!!  Amazing.... truly the Dolomite Super Ski!!!  The skiing may not be that good, but the experience and the views are!!

Skiing down the first part of the Cella Ronda was nothing special (skiing wise), but the view was amazing!!!  I found my self skiing, glove off with my camera phone out, snapping photos of the amazing Dolomites that surrounded us!  Such an awe inspiring place!!  Every avid skier must make a trip here at least once!

This phone camera shot was taken skiing at 37.5 mphs!!!!

This shot doesn't look ski-able, but "Babbs" the tour guide led us to believe that there was amazing free ski routs and tours through out all of these peaks!! I am going to definitely come back here after my racing career and document the amazing col's and descents....

The "Piste" descending from the first pass was long, flat, fast, surprisingly fun, and about 10 kilometer long.... with views like this all around..  "Babbs" soaking it all in...

This lift was dead flat... traversing across a valley from one ski area to the next.. Imagine Squaw and Alpine connected.. That would be easy, but then imagine a lift from the Resort at Squaw Creek, across the meadow and over the Truckee River and up towards the backside of Northstar... That's what they have going on over here.. truly amazing

After the first 10 k, 2000 meter decent, and after you ride the high-speed, cross valley quad, you arrive in a village where you ride a few smaller, slower lifts, ski across some roads (literaly...they leave some snow on the roads for skiers to cross) and ride a long high speed gondola, you arrive on top of a huge alpine plateau...  Here you can see all around the Dolomites as you ride some more lifts... the skiing here is not amazing by any means, but it is vast.  You can ski/travel miles upon miles.  But our destination was Alta Badia for the World Cup GS, so we headed there on our skis...

Ridding back up a slow double lift after the long gondola towards Alta Badia...  good thing they left this one slow-  more time to check out the amazing views.... (check out that amazing col across the valley in the shade)

Me enjoying the awesome ski... this is what skiing is all about... having fun, and exploring the amazing mountains.

I am coming back here at some point in my life to ski this amazing Col.... It is almost perfect (it looks like there is a 10 meter cliff at the bottom...but skiable still i think) Has anyone done this yet???

After the last few lifts, we skied down towards the finish of Alta Badia.  Alta Badia is the best GS race hill in the world.  It is steep and icy, it has bank turns and dogleg turns and rolls all the way down into the finish.  It reminds me a little bit of the "Dog-Leg" on Red Dog at Squaw Valley.  We skied down to watch both runs and we were fortunate enough to be able to cheer on Ted as he won his third strait GS race of the year!  It made all American ski racers proud to watch this.  Our team has the two best skiers in the world right now in Lindsey and Ted, and we have talented younger skiers that are knocking on the doors of success, as well as the coaches and staff to make it happen, so watch out for the US Ski Team to accomplish a lot this new year, and in years to come!!!

Alta Badia.... In the finish area watching...

Ted climbing to the top of the podium in Alta Badia! An amazing day for US Skiing!!!  There is a whole lot more to come....

Val Gardena Groden Downhill

       

  Today was my first Downhill race in Groden, Val Gardena.  I had a really good run going up until the notorious Ciaslat section of the hill where there are big rolls that you have nail in order to carry your speed. My splits from the race went 11th, 20th, 18th, 15th, 47th, 30th, 33rd......   Oh well I learned a lot and next year I will get it!!!!!! On to Bormio. 

View from inside the Camel Jump... this jump is huge!!! But relatively safe and really fun.  There were some really bad crashes off of it this week but the landing is nice and steep so no one was to injured...

Top section of the hill in Groden... This is after the first jump leading into another compression jump and then into a big left footer turn where you have to carry speed for the long top flat

The is the view from the start house...  

Robbie Dixon getting fired up for inspection

A local band entertained us on race day up at the lodge at the start!!!  It was a little loud but made for a festive atmosphere

Race Day Tomorrow!! Super G

This is the view from the first gate of the Downhill...  (Photo Credit for Robbie Dixon)

Tomorrow will be my first World Cup race here in Val Gardena.  The last two days we had training runs for the Downhill which will be on Saturday, and tomorrow we race Super G. Val Gardena is such a cool place. There is so much history in the valley and everyone here lives for ski racing.  My first two runs down the Downhill were very fun and I learned a lot about this hill, and I am feeling really good going into the Downhill race.  For the Super G, I guess Ill see in the morning how they set on this hill.  The whole team just had two days of amazing Super G training in Beaver Creek on the race hill before flying over to Italy, so we are ready to go tomorrow! Cheer us on from home and watch us on UniversalSports.com

Val Gardena

Tomorrow will be my first time ever "sending it" down the Sasslong downhill here in Val Gardena!  I have been watching video from previous races as well as some GoPro helmet cam photage that our coaches took today, but it always looks different when you are actually on it.... I cant wait! Tonight ill be dreaming about the huge camel jumps and the amazing Dolomites all around.

View from the start in Val Gardena

Photographer Jason Abraham

 Check out local Tahoe photographer Jason Abraham.  Ive knows him for a while and he takes great photos, and he is a great skier. Check out his website 

Photographers Favorites: Jason Abraham  

Jason Abraham is a Lake Tahoe area skier and photographer who specializes in Action Sports, Scenic and Lifestyle photography. When Jason (aka Abro) is not in the backcountry on his sled you can find him ripping around Squaw Valley USA. After enjoying these photos, which I know you will, check out Jason’s website www.elevatedimg.com.

This photo of Timy Dutton (aka Timy Backflips) was taken last season on Donner Summit during the filming of Matchstick Productions latest film “The Way I See It”.  I like this shot because Timy is Rad and this image proves it.

This photo was taken March 4, 2006.  Travis Ganong, barely 18 at the time has his way with McConkey’s from high line.  The silhouette of Travis in a cloud of snow along with the contrast in this image captures Travis’s hard charging style

This photo of Gunner Newquest sending Bowers’s Tower for 100+ feet landed me my first cover shot.  I was honored to have Robb Gaffney use this image for the cover of the 2^nd Edition of Squallywood, which has become a bible for multiple generations of ski bums in the Tahoe area.

This image of Christian (aka Slambo) was taken on top of the exit point at Lovers Leap in South Lake Tahoe.  I particularly like the way the ambient light shines on Slambo while perfoming a perfectly rotated ski base front flip.  Christian is currently stationed in Iraq serving our country because he is as badass as they come.







This photo was taken February 25, 2008, which proved to probably be one of the most productive & photogenic days of my photography career.   This image is of Ralph Backstrom winning the fingers race on a snowboard during pristine conditions.   Winning the fingers race on a snowboard just doesn’t happen but Ralphy shreds hard & somehow pulled it off.

This shot of George Hjelte getting pitted was taken in the late afternoon hours after a storm day.  We managed to find a secret little stash in the trees facing northwest.  The soft filtered light gives this image great contrast and balance.

Traveling in Euroland

Patsch, Austria

Today was so close to being the easiest most stress free travel day ever.... But just when you think that it has happened (an easy travel day) that is when it all goes downhill.  The whole flying part was awesome!!!  We checked in our 90+ bags the night before, all our flights were on time, and then on the Atlanta-Munich flight I had three seats all to myself, slept amazingly laying down flat, and got to watch Inception! Best flight ever.  Then we got to Munich and it was dumping snow! The plan was for the coaches to drive to the Audi place a half an hour north of the airport to pick up the new cars, and then come back and pick us up.  So they took off at 8:15am, got the cars and were driving back when there was a car wreck on the autobahn, and they stopped moving.   Meanwhile, we were all sitting with the 90+ bags explaining to cops with machine guns what is going on and why we have so many bags.  Six hours later, the coaches finally get back to the airport, and we took off for Austris, and now it is almost 5pm and we just rolled into Patsch where our apartments are.   From getting our bags at 8am we should have been able to get to our place is Austria by 10 or 11 and had a nice relaxing day, but that is how things go sometimes in Euroland!!!  We are taking a few days off to relax and recover before heading over to Val Gardena to train for a few days before the Downhill training runs start.  There is not much snow here in Austria, but we hear that over in Italy they have a lot. Until next time...

Beaver Creek "Birds of Prey" Photos

From left to right Travis Ganong (Me), Marco Sullivan, Bode Miller, and Steve Nyman joking around at the start.

Pushing out of the start on the second training run.

From left to right our physical therapist Adam gives Ted, myself, and Steve a course report

Ripping through talon turn!

My sister Ali made it! Here she is giving me a "Go Trav" scarf! Thanks Ali!

Jumping...

From left to right Steve Nyman, Ted Ligity, and Travis Ganong (me) play a prank on Italian Stefan Thanei

World Cup Season- First two Weeks!

I made the front page of the Vail Daily.  This was taken with a camera phone so you cant see, but the Squaw Logo is right on the front page there! Take that Vail!

The last two weeks have been super busy as the World Cup season is in full swing now.  It started with a few epic powder days back at Squaw in November before heading up to Lake Louise for the first DH and SG!  Up in Lake Louise I had some fast training runs, finishing in the top 30 every day, but in the DH race I had a few too many mistakes and ended up in 36th.  The next day in the SG race everything came together.  I skied with some aggression and nailed the line and had my best World Cup finish to date finishing 20th!!  My parents were in Lake Louise and it was fun to share that moment with them. The moment was short lived though as we had to hop on a plane the next morning to fly out to Beaver Creek for stop #2 on the World Cup speed tour!  I had some awesome training runs on the Birds of Prey Dh track there and was skiing really fast.  The Birds of Prey course is fun with jumps, lots of terrain, and it is really steep and fast; everything a DH should be.  To top it off the snow was perfect.  That hill lets your ski as fast as you are willing to go!  I had the best training run of my career finishing 7th, starting from 37th, but come race day the wind was too strong, and the race was canceled...  I'm really looking forward to next year.  I feel like I can be really fast on the Birds of Prey course. The next day, the SG was interesting.  It was my first time racing SG on that hill, and it is a really tough course.  Six of my teammates did not finish before I kicked out of the starting gate.  I changed my game plan a bit to make sure that I finished and skied a bit to conservatively to finish 31st by three hundredths of a second!!  So close to a coveted top 30!!!  I feel like I am skiing well and that I am gaining some valuable experience these first two weeks of my first World Cup season!  Im looking forward to the next World Cup stop in Val Gardena Italy!

Interviewing in the finish!

I know these are sideways.... just tilt your head!!  This is the view at the Chateau in Lake Louise!

New Carbon helmet from POC!

 

 

 

Snow back home in Squaw...November 20th!!

Lake Louise Super G

Here is the video from my first SG race this season up in Lake Louise. I finished 20th which is my best World Cup finish to date. I hope to carry the momentum from this race into this weekend at Beaver Creek for the Birds of Prey Downhill and SG! Check us out Friday and Saturday on NBC!

Squaw's Travis Ganong leads way for Americans on Birds of Prey downhill second training run

Squaw's Travis Ganong leads way for Americans on Birds of Prey downhill second training run