Methven, New Zealand – Challenging snow conditions have shifted the U.S. Ski Team’s annual women’s alpine summer training camp to Mt. Hutt in Methven, near Christchurch.

Originally slated for Coronet Peak ski area near Queenstown, warm weather rerouted U.S. women, including Olympic gold medalists Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso to the more northern location midway through the team’s second week of training in New Zealand. Despite the venue change, Head Coach Alex Hoedlmoser reported excellent progress thanks to hard snow conditions and Mt. Hutt’s assistance in providing priority training opportunities.

“The weather has been a challenge, but our athletes are motivated and completely focused on what they came to New Zealand to accomplish,” Hoedlmoser said. “It’s unfortunate we haven’t been able to utilize the terrain at Coronet Peak yet, but Mt. Hutt has totally been taking care of us. The snow is hard, slick and is actually great conditions for testing equipment and working on fundamentals.”

Also attending the camp are World Cup podium finisher Mikaela Shiffrin and the downhill team consisting of Stacey Cook, Leanne Smith, Laurenne Ross and Alice McKennis, even though the training down under is focusing on giant slalom and slalom, along with equipment testing for the upcoming Audi FIS Alpine World Cup season.

“It is a bit rocky getting to the course, but we have dealt with that before,” added Cook, of Mammoth Lakes, Calif. “We have had a really good progression in our program and our team is really building in giant slalom, which directly relates to more speed in downhill and super G.”

The Audi FIS Alpine World Cup season is scheduled to start Oct. 27-28 in Soelden, Austria.