Every once in a while, you're presented with an opportunity to do something that you may never do again in your lifetime. (Unless your name is Are Johnsen!) Making the journey to this year's WASC in Tromsø, Norway well above the Arctic Circle might very well be one of those things for many of us! I use the word "journey" very deliberately here, too - there were a lot of variations on the routes and methods we all used to eventually arrive in Tromsø - and get home! - and we will be telling those stories for years to come, I am pretty sure. I was with a group that spent several days in Amsterdam before and after the week in Tromsø, flying up Saturday through Oslo on full-fare tickets on SAS. Almost all of us ended up buying tickets due to the consistent lack of seat availability for non-revving. Others stayed in Oslo, Copenhagen, Bergen, and Munich - anywhere they could to be in place and able to get seats going north on the right day! Lucky for almost everyone, the Weather Gods were kind and almost everyone got in - and most even arrived with their bags!

The IASF did a great job of finding a variety of properties with discounted lodging, with nearly everything being within reasonable walking distance to the parties, the center of what we found to be a really neat, friendly town, and of course, the pickup point for the regular bus service from town to the Tromsø Alpinpark where all the events would take place!

This year we went all out on our Opening Ceremony preparations. With a "COVID gap" of three years since the last WASC, there really was no excuse not to do SOMETHING fun and cool after being away so long from our friends from airlines around the world! It came in the form of some pretty eye-popping LED stick figure suits and LED masks that Earl Okuda found a couple years ago. He and I started kicking around the possibilities and decided to go all out. We were overwhelmed to find out just how excited the rest of our group would be to join in the surprise, and ended up with a ton of these suits and others that were similar for our parade walk. The pictures speak for themselves, but the videos are even better!  

Going into the week, the Tromsø Alpinpark was the big question mark in everyone's minds - we knew the mountain wasn't that big. We knew it only had four lifts TOTAL, and that we needed to be comfortable with t-bars (that's ALL they had!), but we also knew that they were closing the entire mountain to the public and we would were basically hosting a private event for a week with all of our closest airline friends from around the world! Apart from the initial 3-4 hour crush trying to get rental skis sorted out - they have apparently never rented out EVERY pair of skis in the shop before this week, ALL AT ONCE - we found a fun, cozy, private hill with some amazing views and a pretty cool  warming bar/hut and friendly locals manning the facilities. 

During the week, we had some really interesting weather which made for some alternately awesome and challenging racing conditions - brilliant blue skies and sunshine one minute, then whiteout conditions and dumping snow the next. Temperatures were pretty much what we would expect in the Rockies for that time of year, with one very, very important distinction - the humidity!! We were right on the Tromsøysundet - a large strait of water that comes right up to the base of the hill and connects to the Norwegian Sea. At home, 25 degrees Fahrenheit could be t-shirt weather. With that humidity, it was FREAKING COLD! When the clouds would roll in - and we could watch just that, as they came in across the water, pushing gusty winds ahead of each storm - it got pretty blizzardy! I'm happy to report that our new Arctica Race Capes performed exceedingly well in these conditions! If you were not racing and got to explore the mountain, the lack of crowds meant that you found virtually untracked boot-top powder stashes everywhere you went on all 8 runs... (No, really - ALL EIGHT!)

While we were missing some of our regular racers in a few events, we had some great performances from the people that were there and were able to pitch in. We fielded a complete team this year, something we've only managed to do a handful of times over the years. And if we had just ONE MORE finisher in a particular race, we probably would have made the top five for the week! THAT IS AMAZING! 

The costume party theme this year was "Anything Norwegian!" We went as the Northern Lights - something a bunch of us got to experience for the first time ever on this trip! The party venue was a really interesting place - kind of an indoor family games/pizza parlor/mini-golf place - and there was a live band that played a short set and then DJ'd music for the rest of the evening. 

Thursday morning started fairly cold for the fun race and the Nordic Relay. For our Fun Race table, we had a hot New England clam chowder with the Georgia Bombs that had been so popular at our table in Bad Klein Kirkheim a few years back for our drink. While we got a lot of, uh, "constructive criticism" about asking our members to bring 3 cans of clam chowder halfway around the world, we ended up having one of the most popular booths of the day once the word got out - and it turns out that many of our international airline friends had never been introduced to NE clam chowder! It's always great to have a hot dish when the temps are cold! The SWAG we put together this year proved to be pretty popular, too - our knitted Delta beanies were a hot enough item to be traded directly for the coveted green Wideroe XC beanies!

There are so many things that stand out in my mind about this week, but we would like to give a shout out to a few people in particular:

First, our very own Norwegian local flavor and "høy drikke av vann" (closest we could get to "tall drink of water") Are Johnsen! Are has been doing a fantastic job as the NAASF President for many years now, but has never made it to the WASC until this year! He grew up racing on the hill we skied on this week, and was a great source of information all week when we couldn't find anyone else. We're happy to report that his countrymen were just as friendly and easy-going as he is. We hope he'll be attending more of the WASCs in the future!

Second, WELCOME BACK BETH STEIGER! Beth has been taking a break from NAASF for a while (we think she's been 'breaking in' Seth to her airline friends gradually... probably a good plan) but came roaring back this season, with her WASC debut as a strong precursor to the rest of the season - it was really great to see you back again, especially just off the podium racing against the Euro powerhouses!

Third, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the Hero of Tromsø (HoT?), Steve Bontempo! Steve arrived in Tromsø prepared to party and cheer on his teammates as a spectator, but was pressed into service for the team in both the Men's Slalom and Giant Slalom when some of our regular hard-core racers were knocked out of competing due to injury and equipment issues. This willingness to step up in a pinch to help the team really is the Delta Difference in action - and it allowed us to field a full team this year and come within a hair's breadth of getting our first team result in many, many years. Thanks, HoT Steve!

Fourth, we had a few brand-new members coming to their FIRST EVER Delta Ski & Snowboard Club event - in Tromsø, Norway!! Michelle and Scott Peterson and Courtney Robson decided that travelling halfway around the world and trekking above the Arctic Circle was the best way to get introduced to the club - none of these wimpy, easy-to-get-to domestic destinations on our schedule this season - they went to NORWAY, y'all! We were so glad to get to meet you, and we look forward to seeing you at more of our events throughout the season!

The way home for many of us was not quite a straight line. We had a large group that actually went further North - to Svalbard for a multi-day snowmobile trip through the Arctic North to see the Doomsday Vault, ice caves, and some incredible scenery you just won't see anywhere else on earth. Others joined Are on the ferry following the west coast of Norway down to his home town for a very personal tour. And some hit the coast in Spain for some much-needed beach time after SO MUCH ARCTIC... No question that the challenges of getting to and from Tromsø were sooooo worth it - and many of us took the opportunity to expand the memorable aspects of this trip!

Well done, all of you! *golf clap*

Team Overall

1st - Swiss Airlines

2nd - Austrian Airlines

3rd - Edelweiss

4th - American Airlines

5th - Condor

Team Snowboard

1st - Austrian Airlines

2nd - Swiss Airlines

3rd - Edelweiss

4th - Delta Air Lines

5th - Airbus

Women's Snowboard

9th - Lesli Tomasini (only TWO Americans made it in the top 10!)

18th - Mary Lou Johnson

Men's Snowboard

3rd - Demian Brooks

24th - Stephen Rocha

51st - Earl Okuda

Team Alpine

1st - Swiss Airlines

2nd - Austrian Airlines

3rd - Edelweiss

4th - American Airlines

5th - Wideroe

(In order to get a "Team" result, you must have a minimum number of finishers in all the events. We missed it by ONE. If we had that last finisher, it looks like we would have come in 5th for Team Alpine - and probably overall! We can't wait for Lenzerheide next year!)

Women's Giant Slalom

11th - Beth Steiger

42nd - Natasha Pruss

Men's Giant Slalom

23rd - Phil Casha

27th - Are Johnsen

43rd - Gary Krasnov

48th - David LaFrance

Women's Slalom

6th - Beth Steiger (Top American skier!)

19th - Lisa Nydahl

31st - Natasha Pruss

Men's Slalom

43rd - Phil Casha

59th - Steve Bontempo

Team Nordic

1st - Wideroe

2nd - Condor

3rd - Austrian

4th - Swiss

5th - Edelweiss

7th - Delta Air Lines

Women's Nordic Sprint

14th - Lisa Nydahl

25th - Mary Lou Johnson

Men's Nordic Sprint

32nd - Mark Milliken (2nd American finisher!)

33rd - David LaFrance

36th - Are Johnsen

51st - Gary Krasnov

54th - Stephen Rocha (NOT dead last!!)

Women's Nordic Distance

28th - Lisa Nydahl

31st - Courtney Robson

Men's Nordic Distance

22nd - Demian Brooks (TOP American finisher!)

30th - Mark Milliken

34th - David LaFrance

As usual, the DSSC was turned out with our traditional Tuxes and Red Dresses for the Gala Banquet. We know it's a challenge to fit everything you have to bring to the international events (we're pretty sure the bow on Madisson's dress probably had its own bag!) but it sure is amazing to see everyone cleaned up so nice at least once during the week!  I think we all agree that this was an incredibly memorable week in a long string of memorable WASC weeks - thanks to all of the awesome Arctic explorers we have in our club!