Bozeman Is The Base Camp For Four U.S. Skiers Deep In Training For Milan

Dani Aravich and Ty Wiberg have had a small but consistent group of fellow Para Nordic skiers to train with this summer.

Aravich and Wiberg live in Bozeman, Montana, along with sit skiers Michael Kneeland and Nicole Zaino. The four athletes regularly meet up six days a week to get in some dryland training and target practice at the shooting range.

They take Mondays off to let their bodies rest. Standing skier Jack Berry lives roughly three hours away in Missoula, Montana, and he’ll make the trip to Bozeman at least once a month to train with his U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing teammates.

“Having two other sit skiers as well as Dani as a standing skier (in Bozeman), it is tremendously helpful because we all can train together and we can all push each other in practices,” said Wiberg, a sit skier who was recently named to the U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing development team alongside Berry, Kneeland and Zaino, as well visually impaired skier Max Nelson, sit skier Josh Sweeney and standing skier Zhenghong Schlechte.

Aravich is the lone member of the U.S. National B Team. Visually impaired skier Jake Adicoff and standing skier Sydney Peterson join sit skiers Kendall Gretsch, Oksana Masters and Aaron Pike on the National A Team. Dan Cnossen, a sit skier, is on the National C Team.

“You’re not always having to do workouts by yourself,” Wiberg continued, “because, as I think a lot of endurance athletes know and as a lot of athletes know, working out by yourself isn’t always the most fun.”

It can be difficult for members of the U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing national and development teams to get together in the offseason because of their busy personal lives. Several of them compete in other endurance sports in the summer and travel around the globe to take part in races.

At the same time, not all of the nation’s top Para Nordic skiers live in Bozeman, where U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing is based. They’re scattered across the country, so they often don’t get as many opportunities in the summer to train as a team — aside from the occasional training camp in Bend, Oregon, or overseas in Europe.

This isn’t a typical offseason, though. With the Paralympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 less than eight months away, it has been even more important for the athletes who compete for U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing to get in several months of solid training before the upcoming season starts.

“Now that I’m just skiing, I see how many actual hours it takes to do it, and it’s quite exhaustive,” said Aravich, a two-time Paralympian who stopped competing in track and field after the Tokyo Games to focus on improving as a standing skier. “… Something my coach, Nick (Michaud), always says is that it’s almost like a piggy bank. And each day that you train you put a coin into your piggy bank, and then hopefully you’ll get to crack open the piggy bank.”

Aravich said she saw even more proof of just how crucial her offseason training is after she was diagnosed with mononucleosis last fall. Even though she was initially slowed down by mono, she was able to eventually work herself back into shape and earn her first individual medal at an international event this past winter.

Aravich said she had “such a solid summer” prior to contracting mono that it allowed her to put together a strong season despite the early setback.

The former two-sport athlete has been training at least six days a week this summer for Nordic skiing. She sometimes practices seven days a week if she decides to get in additional work on Mondays with some able-bodied skiers in Bozeman.

Aravich estimated that she has been training 15-20 hours per week this offseason. She varies her workouts to get in time on roller skis, going for runs and riding her bicycle, in addition to taking part in three shooting sessions every week for the biathlon. She also works out in a gym twice a week to improve her strength.

“Each athlete is on a different respective plan depending on how many hours they’re trying to get and what stage they’re in in their career,” Aravich said. “If they’re a newer athlete, they’re probably on lower hours. And so, I’ve been working on trying to build up mine over the past few years.”

In May, a group of top Nordic skiers participated in a training camp that U.S. Paralympics Nordic Skiing hosts every offseason in Bend. Meanwhile, Wiberg, Kneeland and Zaino recently traveled to Torsby, Sweden, to spend around 10 days training inside a ski tunnel that always has snow on the ground regardless of the temperature outside.

“(It’s) our first opportunity since Bend, which was in May, to be back on snow, kind of just getting our skis under us and just mix up the training scenery and not have so many big gaps in between non-snow and snow training,” Wiberg said.

Aravich was scheduled to join her three usual training partners in Torsby a few days later. It was another opportunity for them to get in work as a group during the dog days of summer.

“It’s great to have touch points throughout the year where we get to spend time together, get to do workouts together,” Aravich said. “Every time we go to Sweden, we always do like a Secret Santa no matter the time of year. And so, we really do try to keep a light, fun atmosphere while we’re together.”

Alex Abrams has written about Olympic and Paralympic sports for more than 15 years, including as a reporter for major newspapers in Florida, Arkansas and Oklahoma. He is a freelance contributor to USParaNordic.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc