NENSA is celebrating our 30th anniversary in 2025. As part of the occasion, we’re gathering reflections from skiers across New England on the people, moments, and values which have defined the NENSA community. Each week, we’ll feature a different member’s reflections in the NENSA Community in Kickzone. First up, Sophie-Caldwell Hamilton.
Read the introduction to this Project HERE. We’re excited to celebrate a NENSA community which extends deep into, and beyond, the New England winter woods!
We want to hear from you! Send in your NENSA 30th reflections using this form HERE.
At the 2024 Junior National Championships in Lake Placid, New York, the forecast ahead of the Classic Sprint was looking decidedly sloppy – springy, klister-y – warm, wet, and dirty. Anxiety around the sixty or so members of Team Rocky Mountain, representing the often-frigid, dry snow-packed high country region of Colorado and New Mexico, had started to rise. So, the night before, the Rocky Mountain coaches cued up a video of a classic springy, klister-y, warm, wet and dirty moment from the US Skiing archives. Sophie Caldwell-Hamilton’s first World Cup win, at the 2016 Tour de Ski Classic Sprint in Oberstdorf, Germany. Enjoy.
Then, the Head Race Team Coach at the Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club (AVSC), Sophie Caldwell-Hamilton, got up to talk through it. A room of 14-18 year olds went absolutely rapt. There was talk of sprint heat strategy, changing technique to match the conditions, and the simple importance of leaving it all out there. The message was meeting kids who’d traveled from Colorado and New Mexico, but the prevailing energy from the speaker was one which has prevailed in the New England ski community for generations. Thoughtful, kind, and based in the experience of having loved ski racing very much, and done a lot of it out of that love. Remarkably close to the ground – meaning somewhere out in the hills around Putney, Vermont. A Caldwell coaching, from John to Sverre to Sophie too.
These days, Sophie Caldwell-Hamilton plys her coaching trade while based out of Colorado. The former 2 time Olympian, former US Ski Team member, SMS T2, Dartmouth, and Stratton Mountain School alumni though, still draws from the well of the New England ski community, reflecting that, “ living across the country, I often reflect on that experience when brainstorming how to grow cross country skiing in my region. Time and again, I look to NENSA as a source of inspiration and reflect on my childhood and the ski community and family I grew up in.”
Caldwell-Hamilton’s reflections on NENSA center on this fact, “there’s a reason skiers from New England often develop a lifelong love for cross country skiing—it all starts with the culture built around the sport from a young age. When I was a kid, skiing was simply a way of life. It’s what my family did, what my neighbors did, and what I did with my friends.”
The Granddaughter of NENSA founder John Caldwell, Sophie grew up as NENSA’s programs were growing up too. Her reflections represent this unique purview, “2 things come to mind when I think of the spirit of New England skiing. 1) The excitement surrounding the Bill Koch League (BKL) Festivals. They always felt like the fun championships of the world, capturing everything that makes New England skiing so special. From what I’ve seen recently, it seems like that excitement is still alive and well today.
2) I think of the rich history of New England skiing, particularly the overlapping generations. I feel incredibly proud and honored to be part of the third generation of New England skiers in my family. I love hearing my Grandpa’s stories about the sport when he was competing and coaching. Though the details may have changed, the spirit of the sport remains constant.”
The most important through line of her own journey in the sport is one which also started at NENSA, and started early in the NENSA Programs. Caldwell-Hamilton points specifically towards the Bill Koch League for fostering, “this healthy, joyful relationship with the sport—and with sport in general—laid the foundation for a lifelong connection that many of us still carry.
A colloquialism for NENSA’s aspiration is that the organization is looking to “push the sport forward.” It can often be a vague metaphor, but if there’s anyone for which it has looked forward, it’s Sophie Caldwell-Hamilton. Who, from Vermont to the World Cup, has literally pushed towards finish lines and podium places against the best in the world. Grounded in her family’s values, and the values of the New England ski community they imbued with love and passion, she continues to bring this forward in a lifelong journey through the sport. Talking racing a sprint heat on klister at Lake Placid with Coach Caldwell? That’s a sentence which could have been written fifty years ago, thirty years ago, or today, and it all seems right. It’s a testament to the legacy and contributions that Sophie Caldwell-Hamilton continues to make to the ski community, and NENSA, today.
