June Newsletter

Head of School

May is the most underrated month of the year in the Pacific Northwest. We have been able to enjoy every season over the course of a single month with sunny days in the 80’s & pounding snowstorms with everything in between. All of the students have had unrestricted access to all of the amazing campus facilities regardless of the weather. I have been incredibly impressed & proud of the entire staff making the most of what every day has gifted us with on the hill, in the classrooms & on the weekends. The average GPA of the students has never been higher & the rate of progression has them all on track to the X Games! It is great to see that the students are exhausted at the end of every day while still smiling about what the next day has in store. The students requested some different food for breakfast & it was fun to see our culinary crew cook up breakfast burritos for everyone the very next morning. My mouth started watering the following week when I walked through the kitchen & watched them prepping fish tacos for dinner. The campus is about to be filled up with over 1,000 campers over the next two months so it is great to see everyone making the most of their time here. It is a privilege to work with all of you & your wonderful young adults.

-Mike Hanley

Academics

Summer is here and students are stoked! The energy is high on campus. Students are soaking up the sun with more training and activities during the day and only two hours of class time this summer. Students are making great use of the time given and are grinding away at their classes. Students are coming to class punctually, prepared, and focused. Students this summer are mostly spending their time on Edgenuity or Khan Academy and some are even splitting some of their academic time working on editing video clips for their social media accounts.

The Student of the Month for May is Ryan Buttars because of his sunny disposition, politeness, and positive mentality about learning.

-Kayla Hoakenson

Our students participating in a Ice Breaker activity on Arrival Day

Student Life

Hey Families!

What a month May has been! We have had a few action packed weekends since our students arrived on campus. We started off with a Saturday trip to The Columbia River Gorge where we went skateboarding, picnicked on the river, went swimming and ate ice cream. The following day we gave back to our community by picking up trash at Ski Bowl then followed with a hike to a locals favorite spot, Little Hawaii!

The following weekends have been filled with trips to The Portland Zoo, Par 3 golfing, a stop at Tactics skate shop, amusement parks, waterfall hikes & hanging at the beach. We are looking forward to more fun weekends in the future!

-Luke Giacopelli, Marianna Goings & Levi Thompson

Snowboard

What a start to the spring term! Beautiful weather, a small team who hit it off on what seems like the first day hanging out! Aaron took down Elijah in some one on one basketball so he’s been on cloud nine, rematch will be coming soon! Lorena been holding down as only girl on campus but keeping up with the boys and showing them a few things about how to get it done on hill and off as well.

Everyone is working hard and progressing everyday with something new! The coach to student ratios have been small so it’s been awesome getting after it with the smaller groups!

Flow park was going off on the mountain and there was the reminiscent of its tits (snowboarding for breast cancer awareness) and we hit lots of transition the first week, kids were loving it working all directions regular and switch!

There was one of the best 22 foot pipes we have seen that time of year so we took full advantage and how the fundamentals of toe and heel side carve play into going massive in a pipe! Lorena stomped first alley-oop andrecht!

We currently have campus to ourselves! It’s going to be an amazing summer!!!

Brandon, Elijah and Crew!!

Freeski

Dear Freeski families,

We have had a great first month at the Academy, and each student athlete has quickly found themselves at home here on campus. We have had a wide range of action packed days over the course of May! From utilizing the trampolines to break down tricks and really focus on fundamentals, to having some great sessions on the dry slope rail setup where each athlete has walked away with a new trick. We took full advantage of a rainy day and fired up the Airbag Jump where everyone got dialed in on some unnatural tricks and had the ease of mind to try tricks prior to taking them to snow.

Our time on snow has been incredibly productive. The main focuses have been overall fundamentals: line selection, body position, air awareness and proper takeoffs. The growth of each student from day one to today has been exponential! In addition to the focus on park fundamentals we have pushed each of them on their actual skiing technique which directly translates to their park performance. To close, the overall vibe is at an all time high with every student getting along and feeding off of each other making for the best learning/living experience possible. We have been really stoked on this crew and hope to see everyone again soon!

All the best,
Brian McCarthy & Topher Newett