Bend, OR – Without a Winter Olympics or World Championships on the 2012 alpine calendar, the U.S. Ski Team men’s technical group is tipping their spring and summer training scale toward high volume.

“Of the 2014 Olympic cycle, this summer prep period is the highest volume of training we’ll do,” said men’s technical coach Mike Day, who just capped a 10-day block with his group at Mt. Bachelor. “The April camp in Park City (Utah) was slalom specific. This one was more about fundamentals and balance.”

“Since we’re still pretty fresh from the previous season, we still have the motions down, so now is a really good time to work on fundamentals,” added newly crowned giant slalom World Champion Ted Ligety, of Park City.

Between the 2011 and 2012 World Cup seasons, the technical group will ski every month in places like Mt. Bachelor, Mammoth Mountain, Calif., New Zealand and Chile.

The varied terrain at Mt. Bachelor became marquee for fundamentals when weather made gate training a challenge. Three different storms over the course of the camp brought over a foot of snow to the volcanic peak, but they also brought rain and warmer temperatures.

“Mt. Bachelor did a great job preparing a surface considering the weather. It was almost zero cooperation from Mother Nature,” said Day. “The first three quarters of the camp were a struggle, but we were still able to accomplish some things.”

The camp also featured two-time Olympian Jimmy Cochran (Keene, N.H.), World Cup athletes David Chodounsky (Crested Butte, Colo.), Colby Granstrom (Lake Stevens, Wash.) and Michael Ankeny (Deephaven, Minn.) along with University of Vermont’s Tim Kelley (Starksboro, Vt.), the 2011 NCAA slalom champion.

“Mt. Bachelor just has incredible terrain, so the freeskiing was actually pretty productive,” said Day. “We didn’t get in the time we expected with gates, but what we were able to do was successful.”

“The balance side of it is very important,” said Ligety. “When you have to feel the snow underneath you to be fast it’s good to work on the finite movements that we don’t really work on when we’re on the icy race course.”

However Ligety is already anticipating returning to banging gates when the men’s technical program continues the high volume prep period in two weeks at Mammoth Mountain.

“We’ll have Tommy Ford (Bend, Ore.) and Nolan Kasper (Warren, Vt.) back on snow after their semester at Dartmouth and Andrew Weibrecht (Lake Placid, N.Y.) is going to join us for that one too, so it will be another good group,” Day said.

Most of the athletes will pick up where they left off from Mt. Bachelor with more fundamental work while transitioning back into gates, but according to Day, Ligety has another mission.

“Ted will be going hard with slalom the entire time we’re in Mammoth,” he said. “We’ll have two lanes running everyday and Ted is going to be hammering.”

“Putting in a lot of miles is easy,” said Ligety. “That’s the cool thing about skiing. Whether you’re training or ripping around the mountain, you’re still skiing and having fun.”