Brave Enough by Jessie Diggins & Todd Smith

Author:Jessie Diggins & Todd Smith [Diggins, Jessie & Smith, Todd]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: BIO016000 Biography & Autobiography / Sports, SPO039000 Sports & Recreation / Skiing, SPO058000 Sports & Recreation / Olympics, SPO052000 Sports & Recreation / Winter Sports, BIO022000 Biography & Autobiography / Women
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: 2020-03-10T00:00:00+00:00

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In July, we sometimes head to Alaska to ski on Eagle Glacier, flying out of Girdwood, located outside of Anchorage. We are helicoptered up to the glacier, and it is quite possibly the coolest thing ever. The helicopters pack our skis and equipment into a giant sling, and our food and supplies into another sling. Then they drop them both off on top of the glacier, where we live and train for an entire week.

On the ten-minute ride up to the ridge, we fly over this gorgeous, lush forest that is tropical green in color. It’s almost techno-colored, like when The Wizard of Oz suddenly goes into full color and dazzles you. It’s electric and eye-popping. But when we leave the neon forest and fly into the mountains near the glacier, the reverse happens. Suddenly, we’re in a world completely void of color. All we see can for miles on end is the dark rock of the mountains and huge fields of blinding white snow. It’s gorgeous, in a classical, awe-inspiring, humbling manner. It seems like it is the end of the world. But high up at the edge of the mountain, surrounded by glacial snow and dark black rock, there is a small building that has been created out of Conex shipping boxes. This is our home for a week as we ski circles around Eagle Glacier.

Erik Flora, the coach at Alaska Pacific University and man in charge of this awesome operation, has a team of workers alongside him that have created this completely sustainable environment up there at the end of the world. They have a snow pond where they melt snow, then filter it for the water we use all week. There are bunk rooms and a kitchen for the athletes and crew. The athletes are paired into groups for meal prep, cooking, and cleaning duties. Every day, we’ll ski for two to three hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. Any time that’s not spent skiing, cooking, or cleaning is spent sound asleep in a bunk bed. It’s an epic yet wonderfully simple time in this stark black and white landscape.

But if we’re being honest (and this is my book, so we are), my favorite part of our Alaskan hideaway has nothing to do with skiing. The Alaskan Air helicopters that fly us to and from glacier camp sometimes do a push over the edge of the cliff. They’ll fly up and hover over where the house sits, near the ledge of the cliff, and then nosedive over the edge. Both one’s stomach and the helicopter drop like a roller coaster, and then the helicopter pulls out of its descent to swoop over the valley below. It is an insane ride! This helicopter amusement ride in Alaska gave me a taste of the thrill that I would soon receive on the opposite side of the world.

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