We don’t know about you, but we here at Apogee HQ were glued to the action at the Olympics and wow, was it fun to watch! We especially enjoyed seeing the aerial shots of Cortina d’Ampezzo — where our Dolomites Mountains & Coast students will be in t-minus 3.5 months! It also made us wonder what our leaders and students get up to when the snow starts flying. Turns out, the answer is: a lot. Reports of snowy adventures have been pouring in, and this “off” season has been anything but quiet. From carving up ski slopes to capturing the action at the Olympics (yep, that happened!), our Apogee community has been busy making winter its playground. Keep reading for all the highlights.
We’re looking for alumni submissions for our next edition of Peak News! Did your Apogee student’s basketball team just qualify for the state tournament? Did they just finish performing as the lead role in their winter play? Whatever it is, we want to know about it! Please send in a blurb and photo to lucia@apogeeadventures.com.
Student Feature
Margaret McQuade, Alenna Shapleigh, Maia Harrison
Action shots of Margaret (left) and Alenna (right)
Many of our students are taking on exciting challenges not just during the summer with us, but all year long. This month, we’re spotlighting one sport in particular: alpine skiing. You may have seen the incredible wins from Team USA at the Olympics this year, but we wanted to share some impressive accomplishments happening a little closer to home.
Margaret McQuade is a two‑time Apogee alum, completing our Maine’s Downeast Explorer trip in 2024 and our Alps Explorer trip in 2025. With Apogee, Margaret summited the tallest mountain in Maine and completed the Tour du Mont Blanc, trekking through Switzerland, France, and Italy on foot. But her adventures don’t stop when summer ends. Margaret is also an accomplished ski racer! She is ranked first on her high school team and finished an impressive 6th in the Western Massachusetts rankings this season.
In the same region, Alenna Shapleigh, an alum of our Caribbean Service: Virgin Islands trip, is also making waves (get it?!) on the slopes. After spending her summer working on meaningful service projects on the island of St. Croix, Alenna returned to school and dominated the ski season. She’s ranked first on her team and 2nd in all of Western Massachusetts!
Margaret and Alenna have become great friends both on and off the hill. Though they attend different schools, they race for the same program in the Berkshires, giving them plenty of opportunities to train and compete together. Their shared love of skiing keeps them connected year‑round, and we love seeing how Apogee students are able to connect with each other through other exciting outdoor activities.
Alenna (left) and Margaret (right) at a ski race together!
Just one state over, another Apogee alum is carving her own path in the ski world. Maia Harrison joined us for our Vermont to Montreal trip last summer, where she made new friends, biked big miles, and gained the kind of confidence that comes from exploring the world on two wheels. She still considers it one of her best summer camp experiences, and she’s already gearing up for her next adventure. This coming summer, Maia will return to Apogee to pedal across Europe on our Europe Coast to Coast trip, crossing not just one border but seven!
Summer isn’t the only season when Maia shines. When winter arrives and the mountains turn snowy, she trades her bike for skis. This year has been one of her most exciting seasons yet. As a freshman joining a new high school team, she brought determination and enthusiasm from day one. The season started strong and only gained momentum. Maia helped lead her team to their ninth consecutive New Hampshire state championship!
Maia (on the far left in the white shirt) and her team celebrating winning States!
Maia’s individual results at the state championship were a huge part of the team’s success. She won the Giant Slalom outright and took third in Slalom, earning her second place overall for the entire event! Her season continued at the High School Eastern Championships, where the best skiers from 13 East Coast states competed. Maia finished a mind-boggling 3rd overall!
What stands out most about Maia isn’t just her results, it’s her perspective. More than medals or rankings, she values the joy of being outside, moving through the mountains with friends. She feels lucky to live close enough to a ski hill to train daily and close enough to the backcountry that, on good snow days, she can ski straight from her home into the woods. Whether she’s skiing in the mountains of New Hampshire, biking through Vermont, or preparing to ride across Europe, Maia is an adventurer who truly cherishes time outside with friends.
Together, Margaret, Alenna, and Maia remind us what makes the Apogee community so special. Whether they’re racing down icy courses in New England, completing meaningful service projects in the Caribbean, or biking (and hiking) across Europe, these athletes show us what it looks like to carry the spirit of adventure into every season. Their stories inspire us, and we can’t wait to see where their determination and curiosity take them next.
The awards ceremony at the High School Eastern Championship Meet (Maia is on the far right)
Staff Feature:
Jack Elder
Jack high fiving students after summiting Katahdin on Maine’s Downeast Explorer in 2021
Jack Elder first joined Apogee in 2021, as a trip leader on our Maine’s Downeast Explorer trip. Since that first summer, his role has evolved from leading students in the field to capturing the joy and wonder of our programs through his photography. If you’ve spent any time on our website, you’ve seen his work, from the video on our homepage to countless images across our trip pages. Jack’s eye for storytelling has shaped how Apogee trips are seen and remembered.
Jack’s time as a leader deeply influences how he photographs our trips. He explained that having led before shooting allows him to understand the rhythm of each day, the logistics, the energy, the moments when something special is about to happen. He also loves working with students because he knows firsthand how powerful a silly game or surprise can be during a big challenge day. When asked about his favorite part of working with Apogee groups, he didn’t hesitate:
“The relationships I get to build with the leaders and the students on the trips. My job leads me to work with so many different people, and it’s always a blast to hang with the kids and lean into being a child and play silly games while also feeling like I can offer some sort of mentorship that is a little separate from the leader relationship. And seeing a group of kids in a phone-free environment: truly an invaluable aspect of these trips now more than ever!”
We’re incredibly lucky to have Jack not only capturing the special moments on Apogee trips, but also making a meaningful impact on the groups he travels with.
After nearly four years of photographing Apogee trips, Jack has taken a lot of photos. When we asked him about a moment that truly captures the essence of what we do, he immediately recalled a day in the North Cascades. The group had spontaneously decided to hold a fashion show in the middle of the mountains. Jack watched the “kids break out of their shell and let loose. They had endless goofiness and pure joy backdropped by a stunning landscape.” Joy and silliness in a beautiful place, what could be more quintessentially Apogee than that?
A photo taken by Jack of the Northwest Mountains and Coast trip sporting their sweet camping fashion
This winter brought Jack a new adventure: Italy, cameras, mountains… and the Olympics! His February was spent filming Olympic events up in the mountains. When asked what felt similar between shooting the Olympics and shooting for Apogee, he first mentioned the incredible wildlife he spotted. But more than that, he said it was about “bringing a group of strangers together to do something cool in a new place… and leaving as really good friends!” While in Italy, Jack sampled plenty of pasta and pizza, but his true Apogee of the trip (if you will) was “getting to watch a local friend I grew up with back home, Alex Ferreira, bring home the gold medal in halfpipe, and getting to celebrate with him after.” A once-in-a-lifetime moment, indeed.
As winter winds down and spring approaches, Jack is gearing up for new adventures. He’ll be returning to Italy, this time to capture photos and videos of our Dolomite Mountains and Croatian Coast groups. He shared that he’s “excited to be back in Italy to see it in the summer and, whilst amidst my own awe, capture these kids’ extraordinary once-in-a-lifetime experience to see such a beautiful country and landscape.” We can’t wait to see the magic Jack captures this summer and in the years to come!
Jack at the Milano/Cortina Olympics!
Office Happenings:
The “Other” Kind of Skiing
Will with his skiers and assistant coaches after a ski meet this winter
If you’re an avid Apogee Tiny Mic Thursday watcher (shoutout to all five of you who fit that description), you will have noticed that our office has an affinity for a different type of skiing than the type where Alenna, Margaret, and Maia excel. Co-directors Kevin and Will are both avid Nordic skiers, and Will spends the winter in his native Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he coaches a high school Nordic ski team. Will has now made the trek back to Maine for the spring and summer, but as we reflect on all things winter sports in this installment of Peak News, we figured we’d share some of “Coach Will’s” season highlights. The 2025-26 season for the Highland Park Senior High Nordic ski team included a Twin Cities Nordic Ski Conference championship for the boys’ team, and five skiers qualifying for the Minnesota High School State Championship Meet (a feat fewer than 5% of Minnesota High School Nordic skiers achieve!). More important than the athletic accomplishments, though, Coach Will’s team of 100 skiers had a ton of fun, and (hopefully) turned some brand-new Nordic skiers into lifelong lovers of the sport.
