As an alpine skier at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, Micaela Holland ’11 skied at three NCAA Championships.

Five years later, she’s leading the alpine ski team as the youngest head coach at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. Being young, she says, helps her to connect with her skiers.

“She knows exactly what it’s like to be in our shoes,” says Hannah Johnson ’18 of Incline Village, Nev.

“Once you start coaching, you say things that sound so simple. In reality, when you’re the person doing them, they are really hard,” says Holland, who was the head alpine coach at Clarkson University in 2015-16.

“I’m still familiar with that disparity, so I think that helps me communicate things a little better.”

UPDATE: April 27, 2009: Sleeping just three hours over the last four days, Tyler Fish ’96 and John Huston reached the North Pole on April 25, 2009, becoming the first Americans to ski unsupported to the pole.

The final days were an “absolute blur,” . “We pushed our bodies and minds to the limits to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds…. We are exhausted…. We have a fantastic feeling of satisfaction — and of freedom from our powerful routine that propelled us to the North Pole.”

April 22, 2009: Fish ’96, Huston have just days to reach North Pole

Facing an April 25 deadline, Tyler Fish ’96 of Ely, Minn., and John Huston of Chicago are making a final dash to the North Pole.

Hoping to become the first Americans to ski unsupported — no food drops, no outside help — to the pole, the pair are less than 60 nautical miles away.

“We need to make it to the North Pole by [April 25] or we won’t make it,” Fish wrote in the , part of the educational and fundraising outreach of the expedition.

“John and I…have been discussing, making plans and doing everything we have to do so we are ready for the final push, which we are now doing.”

• Follow Fish and Huston’s final dash to the North Pole.

Hampering their efforts is the steady drift, south and east, of the Arctic ice beneath their feet. They’ve also lost some time navigating the various “leads” of open water, and are feeling beat down by the harsh Arctic environment.

The April 25 deadline is more than self-imposed. Whether they reach the pole or not, Fish and Huston need to be on the last flight from a seasonal Russian station some 60 miles from the pole.

Facing the deadline, the pair have implemented a 27-hour schedule, traveling 17 hours each day and using the rest for sleeping and eating.

The trek began March 2 when the pair left Ellesmere Island and stepped onto the Arctic Ocean sea ice.

Welcoming the best collegiate skiers in the nation, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College plays host to the 2009 NCAA Skiing Championships March 11-14 at its two home venues: Sunday River in Bethel, Maine (alpine) and Black Mountain in Rumford, Maine (Nordic).

“Ever wonder what it’s like to hurtle down a giant slalom course at highway speeds?” asks Lincoln Benedict ’09. Find out by watching his video preview of the NCAA course.

Welcoming the best collegiate skiers in the nation, ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College plays host to the 2009 NCAA Skiing Championships March 11-14 at its two home venues: Sunday River in Bethel, Maine (alpine) and Black Mountain in Rumford, Maine (Nordic). [More…]

Here are guides to the alpine and Nordic events at Sunday River and Black Mountain, respectively:

• How to watch the Alpine events at Sunday River.
• How to watch the Nordic events at Black Mountain.

It’s pandemonium atop a beginner lift at the ski resort in New Hampshire. Limbs flail, ski equipment disconnects, and clothing detaches as fledgling skiers hit the snow on their first lift ride.

Then Alexa Bernotavicz ’94 steps in. She rights the skiers, guides them out of harm’s way, and readies the lift for yet another wave of chaos. While this isn’t Bernotavicz’s permanent spot, it’s an apt metaphor for her job overseeing on-hill operations at Bretton Woods, including snowmaking, grooming, lifts, and the Ski Patrol.

The job isn’t so much about telling people what to do as it is “making sure that all departments are communicating with each other,” says Bernotavicz, a high honors geology major at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.As with any outdoor work, Bernotavicz’s day-to-day schedule is at the mercy of the weather. “Never thought I’d be an amateur meteorologist,” she says with a laugh, her demeanor cool and sunny. “The weather dictates what I do every day. If a storm’s coming in, you have to coordinate snowplows and grooming.”

There’s a larger seasonal rhythm, too. During peak winter periods, like school vacation weeks, “we’re in the moment, focusing on skiers’ experiences,” she says. qBy late February, the focus turns to summer projects and maintenance.

Perhaps due to the recession — keeping New Englanders close to home — and/or a decent snow season, New England ski areas enjoyed an uptick in business in 2008–09, according to media reports. But generally, the industry has seen flat growth, so competition to attract skiers is intense.

At any mountain, “people go up a chair lift, and come down a ski trail,” she says, so every mountain’s goal is product differentiation. “You have to make your experience different.” Last year, Bernotavicz was involved in the installation of a new canopy tour at Bretton Woods, part of the fabled Mount Washington Resort, that descends 1,000 feet via treetop zip lines connected by trails and suspension bridges. “It’s one of a kind in New England,” she says. “We hope it helps ramp up our summer operations.”

And no matter what breaks down, which lift operator doesn’t show up, or how many finely planned events go awry, at the end of the day, Bernotavicz says, “I get to work where other people vacation. That’s pretty special.” [Slide show]

Photographs and text by H. Lincoln Benedict ’09

True, there’s no longer a ski jump on Mount David, but it’s still part of the Maine spirit to face winter with gusto (and insurance). Which is why a few ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ friends drove to Gilead, Maine, one winter day to create a road-gap jump. Here, H. Lincoln Benedict ’09 of Shaftsbury, Vt., soars over his friends (and their cars) as Sarah Charley ’11 of Portola Valley, Calif., trips Benedict’s camera and battery-operated strobes. Benedict says the idea came from William “Dots” Loopesko ’10 of Denver, Colo., who had created a jump there before. “It took about four hours to make the jump,” Benedict says. “We took about 15 jumps before this one to see if we could clear three cars.”

Photograph by H. Lincoln Benedict ’09

Those activities have waned, and now, thanks to a tourism boom, the place attracts a lot more people. There’s world-class mountain biking, whitewater rafting on the Colorado River, two national parks, and, as a result, an ever-increasing number of coffee shops and Mexican restaurants. Still, the nearest mall and big-box stores are 90-plus minutes away, and first-run movies take a month to find our tiny three-screen theater. The local newspaper is just a weekly.

In this amazing landscape (lots of films have been shot around here), accented by a quirky, tight-knit community of locals, I’ve found my home. But living here has its tradeoffs, the most apparent of which is a disconnection from part of my identity — my ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ identity. Where I live, folks don’t just ask, “Where’s ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College?” but “Where’s Maine?”

ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ itself is 2,000 miles away, and my closest college friends live in the Pacific Northwest or New England. Attending ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ weddings and visiting other friends during my travels helps me get a fix on my ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ identity, as do the e-mail ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½News updates. A ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ calendar hangs in my home office.

Even as I’m feeling cut off from the place and people that helped form part of my self, my work here is all about place. My job with the Bioregional Outdoor Education Project helps rural schoolteachers instill in their students a stronger sense of place. The idea is that students who have a relationship with their outdoor place will become better citizens, more inclined to protect and interact with their environment.

On one summer trip to train teachers in outdoor education, I met a woman about my age. As we camped in the bean fields of eastern Utah and talked about our backgrounds, I learned that she was from New England. I peppered her with questions: What part? Was she familiar with the New England colleges?

Well, she wasn’t just familiar with the New England colleges. She was a ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ alumna — Sarah Merrill Strouthopoulos, Class of 1996.

My class. But we never knew one another as students.

It seemed impossible. But as she and I recreated our ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ years, we realized that we had led parallel and separate ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ lives. Sarah was an art history major; I toiled in the geology labs. She lived off campus; I was a happy Frye Street resident. She spent her junior year abroad in Nepal, while I spent a semester in Ecuador. She was a varsity skier, and I played rugby.

After that surprise mini-reunion, Sarah and I continued to work together during the school year. She is an elementary school teacher in Durango, Colo., about three hours from my home office in Moab. Every other week, I traveled to her classroom to work with her and her students. We set up compass courses in her schoolyard, conducted “Animal Olympics” with her students and their parents, and planned field trips throughout the year.

Sarah and I spent a rich school year reliving our time at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, but we also created a new chapter: us working together on outdoor and place-based education projects, while her students’ wide eyes told us we were accomplishing our goals. To our shared stories of ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ — we laughed about the housing lottery and recalled our graduation speaker — we added new ones, like her students’ highly amusing oral reports on Colorado eco-zones.

The teacher certification program culminates with an extended backcountry rafting trip on the San Juan River. Winding through southern Utah and the northern Navajo Reservation, Sarah and I realized that we had discovered a new sense of place, but not in strict geographical terms. Instead, it’s more like a deep awareness, one that was planted and grown in each of us during our ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ years, when we learned to take risks, challenge ourselves, and meet new people.

Separately, Sarah and I put down roots here in the West, drawn by a love of the landscape, the environment, and the people. But she and I are connected, and we are connected to others, across miles, across years, and across differences.

By Erika Jones ’96, Illustration by Marty Braun