Summertime in Anchorage means it's ski season at Eagle Glacier

Winter was just a brief helicopter ride away last week for 18 of some of the nation's best cross-country skiers.

They headed to Eagle Glacier for the Alaska Pacific University Nordic Ski Center's first training camp of the summer, where winter was alive and kicking.

"Monday was our first full day up there, and while heavy rain hit Anchorage, we experienced blizzard conditions and sustained snowfall," Anchorage skier Eric Packer said by email.

"Tuesday morning the clouds parted and we woke up to sunny skies and over a foot of new snow. The new snow provided incredible skiing conditions for the rest of the week."

The camp at the Thomas Training Center — a 10-minute helicopter ride from Girdwood — attracted 11 men and seven women, including the majority of an APU men's team that asserted itself like never before during the 2015-16 season. The team grabbed three of the four gold medals and six of the 12 total medals awarded at the January national championships in Michigan.

All three Alaska men who won national championships were at last week's camp – Packer, Scott Patterson and Reese Hanneman.

Also on hand were Tyler Kornfield, who was part of an APU sweep in the national-championship classic sprint race, and David Norris, the winner of this year's American Birkebeiner.

Sadie Bjornsen, the leader of APU's women's team, was there too. A 2014 Olympian, Bjornsen is coming off the best season of her career – she finished the World Cup season ranked 14th in the world.

"Let the 2016 Summer Games begin," Bjornsen tweeted before heading up to Eagle Glacier, a place where all summer long skiers will find winter conditions – and groomed trails — at 5,000 feet in the Chugach Mountains.

A camp is held nearly every week for skiers of varying degrees of ability.  Last week's camp drew "a mix of World Cup and national level skiers, and some promising Junior skiers," Packer said.

APU's elite skiers will return for camps at the end of June and the end of July, he added, and in early July there will be a joint APU/U.S. Ski Team camp.

The hope is that work done on the glacier this summer will pay dividends on the race trails next winter.

Skiers trained four to five hours a day last week, averaging 50 to 60 kilometers of skiing per day, said Packer, who as the winner of last season's SuperTour Series earned a spot on the U.S. team for the start of the upcoming World Cup season in Europe.

"It'll be my first time racing World Cups in Europe," he said. "There is a saying that skiers are made in the summer, so I'm doing my best to be as ready as I can. Dryland training is important, but nothing can replace time skiing on real snow."