Cheyenne Lake

Topics Covered

• The history of the Cheyenne Lake complex
• The importance of balance and staying mellow
• What students are learning during this camp

Blog

In this episode of Ski With Wade, I’m coming to you from Cheyenne Lake, an amazing lake complex right off of Route 66, where we are having our ski camp. Carl is hosting us and I start the episode by connecting with him and hearing about his story with this sport and these incredible lakes.

Carl started with a ski club called Golden West Ski Club, which used to rent these lakes, then they bought in 30 years ago. After retiring a year and a half ago, Carl is here fulltime now. He tells me that the original lake — the first ever man-made waterski lake! — is just five miles away from where we are now. The other lakes here were copied off of that plan and they have six tournament lakes and couple of lakes to boat on. Obviously, that’s for chilling out and for guys like me who love SUP.

When I ask Carl what we worked on yesterday at camp, he brought up balance, which is so extremely important to this sport! We’ll hear more about balance from the other students I talk with.

Next, I talk to Tom, who is here to hang out and learn with us at camp these two days. He grew up in Redlands, California and got into skiing at 35 years old. That’s when he and a friend built a slalom course and he has been hooked ever since. Just like Carl, Tom talked about the balance that we worked on yesterday and the need to just relax, use momentum, and let it flow.

Third, I talk with Jeff who also grew up in Redlands and learned to ski at five years old. I brag on Jeff a bit for ripping 35s yesterday. He is a fantastic skier and it’s so great to work with him! He also mentions the need to be mellow, which is a word that we don’t use much in this sport, but it’s actually a key part of what we do.

And at the end, I talk with a young skier, Logan, who is here with both his dad and sister. Logan is just nine years old and his family has been on the lake for eight years, so basically Logan’s whole life. He started running the slalom when he was eight and yesterday we worked on one-handed turns (a first for him!) and on creating more space.

With that, I wrap up the episode. Thanks again to these skiers for hanging out with me and to Carl for hosting us at this great complex. It’s the second day of camp and we’re ready to cut more rope.