EL COLORADO, Chile (Sept. 15) - U.S. moguls skiers caught a witch's brew of weather during their annual training camp in South America, but Head Coach Donnie St. Pierre said the poor conditions "brought out the best in each athlete."

St. Pierre, meanwhile, tore his right Achilles tendon on the final day at El Colorado Ski Area and underwent surgery in Steamboat Springs, Colo., when he returned. He expects to be back on skis by November, he said.

"Last year," he said, "we lost one day. This year, we didn't get much more than that - down there 17 days and we had about four full days of training and partials days at other times. We had a meter of snow, maybe four feet, so it seemed we were shoveling every day.

“The athletes were awesome, just awesome about all of it. We’d dig until noon, then ski until 1:30, and have to call it a day. Digging is such tiring work…but everyone stepped up. It certainly wasn’t all doom and gloom,” St. Pierre said.

Travis Cabral (South Lake Tahoe, CA), the 2003 World Cup moguls champion who is aiming for his first Olympics this season, agreed. “It was a good camp,” Cabral said. “They certainly weren’t optimum conditions, but I think everyone made the most of it. I mean, it wasn’t anything we could control; the coaches did a great job again and we all did a lot of digging, and then we took advantage of every chance to ski.”

The coaches and athletes got up the hill on the first day with a handle-tow “and we dug out about 30 or 40 feet at the top of the lift so it could be used,” St. Pierre said. “When we got back down to the bottom, we found the bullwheel still hadn’t been dug our, so I was very erratic in terms of what the ski area could get done, and we had to count on ourselves to make things happen.

“At one point,” he said, “for two days it was like being under house arrest. There was no power, no electricity, no phones or computers. We were inside so much of the time, although it certainly wasn’t what the folks in New Orleans and Mississippi faced, and are facing, and we were all conscious of that tragedy; there was no complaining about our problems.

“The camp really brought out the best in each athlete, and they really made the most of it when they got to the hill, and now they’re all in a good place with their training and with their preparation,” the coach said.

The big dumps of snow gave the athletes chances to work on the jumps which they had trained during a June camp at the Utah Olympic Park splash pool. “They made a quick transition from the splash pool to the snow without any negative repercussions, so that was great. Many of said, ‘Y’know, this is softer than [landing in] water.

“I’ll tell you, we saw some great stuff and, at the end, we were looking at a lot of athletes who are at the top of their game. This is an Olympic season and – we’ve said it before, but it’s so true – maybe the toughest competition these athletes face will be making their own Olympic Team.”

The World Cup moguls season opens Dec. 13 in Tignes, France, and then Dec. 18 in Oberstdorf, Germany. As key events in the 10 Weeks to Torino, the U.S. Ski Team Olympic Trials – with the winner of moguls and aerials contests getting an automatic spot on the Olympic Team – will be staged Dec. 30-31 in Steamboat before the annual January World Cups in North America. After the Chevrolet Freestyle International Jan. 12-14 at Deer Valley, Utah, the final qualifying event for the Olympic Team will be the Nature Valley Freestyle Cup Jan. 20-22 in Lake Placid, N.Y., with the 14-member Olympic Team announced Jan. 25.