Trollhaugen?? Are you serious? Damn, how come I havent heard of it? That's great, glad to see Trollhaugen doing something progressive for once. My I indulge myself and tell you all a little story about Trollhaugen? Here we go:
I'm 23 years old. I was born and raised in St. Croix Falls, WI (home to Trollhaugen). I lived and still live only 2 miles from Trollhaugen, I can see my house from the top of Nessebaken. Anyway, I grew up at Trollhaugen, Trollhaugen was basically my life. From the time I was 8 until only a few years ago, every winter night that I didn't have ski practice, I was at Trollhaugen. My friends and I used to run that place, along with Matt Peterson and CJ Marsh and Chad Otterstrom (pro snowboarders that founded and ride for Academy).
My friends and I never hung out with those guys, because this was back around 1994-2000 before skiers and snowboarders mingled.
Anyway, if you were around Trollhaugen back then, you know who the Fieldseths were. A family of skiers that were good, very very good. This was before twin tips (although some friends and I blowtorched some old K2s and made our own), so the Fieldseths were all about 720 daffys, quad cossacks, 1080s, etc. But I am not kidding you, these guys were good, it was 2 brothers and a sister. If they had only been born a few years later, they would rule the midwest scene. Here's an example: the sister thought she had to keep up with her brothers, since there were no other girl skiers that jumped so she had no other comparisons. Thus, in 1994 she was throwing 720s, 360 daffys, 360 rewinds, off axis 720s, backflips, etc. This all when Sarah Burke was only 10 years old.
Anyway, Trollhaugen was great. My friends and I knew everyone that worked there so they let us build jumps wherever we wanted and gave us free food. We would go up to the really nice restaurant up above the lodge in our ski boots and they would give us each a slice of pie for free and let us sit down and eat. One time we went there after they were closed in March after it snowed a lot and we hiked to ski in some fresh 2" of WI powder, and the owner got on the loud speaker and called us in by name. Then he went out and took a run or 2 with us. hahaha.
Well, the point of my story is: Enjoy Trollhaugen. It has a charm that I havent found anywhere else. I'm 23 now, and I've lived in Oregon, Colorado, and Chile. I was a ski instructor at Keystone, and skied Breck, Vail, A-Basin, and Copper Mountain weekly. When I lived in Oregon and went to school there, I skied Mt. Hood on the weekends, and got Bachelor once or twice. I also skied Whistler/Blackcomb a few times.
When i lived in Chile I skied Portillo (amazing!) and El Colorado.
Despite all that, I come back to Trollhaugen as much as possible and I still consider it my favorite place to ski. I'm living in Minneapolis right now, so I'll be down at Troll. as much as possible this year. Can't wait.
