|
The skiing isn’t over, be sure to get signed up for May training at Snowbird and for our summer offerings.
The planning process for next season is well underway. We will be sending out a year-end survey next week. Feedback, both positive and critical, is a key part of the process for the team. I am also always happy to have a personal email or phone call as part of that process.
Dream Big. Work Hard.
~ Bridger Call
Executive Director
SBSEF Spring / Summer Training Options
Spring & summer camp season is HERE! Next season starts now!
ALPINE
May – All Alpine groups will schedule time / weekends in May to get some additional training in. CLICK HERE to register for your May days.
- May 3-5: GS Focus
- May 9-12: SG Focus
- May 17-19: SL Focus
Mt Hood – We have lanes booked on the Palmer snow field for June 21-30. This camp is open to JFAST – U19 athletes and will be a GS + SL focused camp. CLICK HERE to pay your deposit today!
International Camp – We are tentatively planning an alpine camp in the southern hemisphere for July 14 – 27th. Depending on lane space we will be either in La Parva, Chile, or Argentina (Bariloche region), but we need a verbal commitment from 6 – 10 athletes in order to solidify the training option. The camp is intended for U14 – U16 athletes and will be a GS / SL Focused camp. SBSEF will travel with U16 and U14 (with coach approval) athletes. If interested in this option, please complete this form and we will send out specific details for camp. Yes, Im interested in this summer camp
FREERIDE
Freeride Spring weekends for current Altabird athletes – CLICK HERE to register!
- April 27 & 28
- May 4 & 5
- May 11 & 12
Chile Camp – Deposits will be due soon, watch your email for more details.
Awards!
We are hosting two awards presentations next week at 5:30 PM on the Plaza at Snowbird:
- April 23 – Freeride U12, U15, U19 and Skimo
- April 25 – Alpine U14, U16, FIS
To view all the award winners, be sure to check out our webpage: https://sbsef.com/awards/ we will update the webpage on April 26, Devos and JFast are already updated 🙂
Freeride U19 Team:
The 2023/2024 season has been nothing short of exciting for the U19 athletes and coaches. Everyone’s hard work and dedication has certainly shown, from dry-land training, to bell-to-bell days up Little Cottonwood Canyon. I believe that each member of the team progressed their skiing ability, and knowledge of being in the mountains, formed new friendships, and stoked their passion for the sport. A busy start of the season training at Alta and Snowbird, had us working on core fundamental skills to prepare us to ski freeride lines, and have the most fun possible on the mountain. We also trained vigorously every Wednesday at Woodward Park City, to further our jumping skills and air awareness.
Our holiday camp went well, where we practiced mental strength techniques, avalanche safety, and overall skiing strength and conditioning. We started our competition season strong, and we finished strong! We have had great results at nearly every competition we have attended. The athletes demonstrated excellent line selection and execution of each line chosen. They had to make game-time decisions in difficult conditions at times during the season, showing great mental strength. Nine U19 athletes made it into the Junior Freeride Championships held at Breckenridge, CO. Hannah Baldwin came home with the win and a 2nd overall ranking! Other athletes attending were Sasha Bills, Madeline Johnson, Izzy Parker, Drew Dana, Austin Aten, Jack Reynolds, Michael Wheatley, and Obie Simper. All skied well regardless of the results, and it was a privilege to be one of their coaches.
|
|
|
This season will not be one to forget easily, with the largest freeride roster we have ever had, the good times we have had in the mountains together will live on in all of us. We dealt with season-changing and season-ending injuries, broken equipment, rough tumbles, tough finishes, and as always a whole lot of pow and smiles. I can’t express how proud we all are of each athlete’s desire to be a part of this team and share the good vibes with each other. We are very excited about next winter and what it has in store for us. Thank you all for every effort you have contributed. The good vibrations are flowing steadily!
Until next time,
Griffin N. Rasmussen
Head Coach U19 Freeride
Freeride U15 Team:
Wow, that season flew by! The U15s had a great year. The kids all had a great attitude and the coaches all really enjoyed skiing with everyone. The season started in September with dryland training. A lot of kids participated and began training to get strong for the ski season. Dryland is a great place to meet a group of kids! Regular on-snow training started in December where the U15s worked on athletic stance, edging, pressure, and rotary. The team then rolled into Christmas camp where the skied hard for a whole week. During Christmas camp, the group worked on getting ready for the competition season. They worked on picking a line, linking airs together, and doing a few miniature competition scenarios. It was so awesome to watch the group improve over these months.
In late January the competition season started and the team stayed busy with them until the start of April. The U15s did great this competition season. Some of the team that were newer to competitions learned how to pick a line and deal with the mental game of it all. Other members of the U15s found their way to the podium in multiple events. Everyone should be super proud of their season! While competitions were happening the kids not at the events held down the fort and continued to progress on their technical skiing. The team wrapped up its final day of regular team on March 31st.
At the beginning of April, five of the U15 qualified for the Junior Freeride Championship in Breckenridge Colorado. These athletes were Brynn Copinga, Cortland Goldberg, Fisher Campagna, and Canyon Whiteside. Cortland and Brynn made it to the finals and Brynn Copinga finished in the top 10! Congratulations to all of them.
This season has been a blast the U15s should all be very proud of themselves this year! Already looking forward to next year!
Cheers,
Jacqueline Pollard
Head Coach U15 Freeride
Freeride U12 Team:
The season for the U12s started with fall dryland beginning in early September. This is the first year that we have offered dryland training for our U12s and it was a great success with 5-6 athletes attending regularly. We collaborated with JFast, U14 Alpine, and U15 Freeride for dryland, which was a great way for our athletes to get to know kids from other age groups and disciplines. Dryland consisted of hikes, mountain bike rides, field workouts, and gym training at the UOP.
The regular training season started in early December with a strong technique focus including some brush training on the race hill during Holiday Camp. The focus required from skiing a brush course isn’t something that freeride athletes typically encounter and was very helpful in improving their technique. We plan to make focused sessions on the race hill part of our regular training in the future. The athletes worked hard during the first part of the season and all showed improvement in their technical skills.
In late January we transitioned to a busy competition season. Success is measured by more than competition results, but our team did have many excellent finishes. Our U12 team earned multiple podium results in both boy’s and girl’s fields at 6 of the local 2* competitions. To cap off the competition season Will Fallis was our only U12 to compete in the U12 Junior Freeride Championships at Breckenridge, Co in early April. He earned a 2nd place result in a field of 40 U12 boys from across the US and Canada. It should be noted that Will trained in Alpine in addition to freeride and also qualified for and raced at the IMD Alpine championships.
~ Davin Grapentine
Freeride Development Director
|
|
Skimo Team:
The first season for our Skimo team was a success. Originally the team was planning on training at the UOP, but a lack of early-season snow didn’t allow for the opening of the uphill trail on West Peak. We had to shift to plan B and use what turned out to be a great training venue below the Summer Road at Alta. It was a short venue, which turned out to be an advantage because it gave our athletes plenty of transition practice. Our athletes competed in 5 of the 6 Utah Skimo Citizens Series races held at Brighton, Solitude, and Park City. We are hoping to grow the program for the 2024/2025 season and have athletes participate in a few bigger races locally and regionally.
~ Davin Grapentine
Skimo Head Coach
|
|
Snowboard Team:
March and April were busy months for the snowboard teams.
Our young riders continued to train here at home with some excellent conditions – working on meeting their own personal goals with Coaches Anna and Zane. Coach Anna has done an amazing job organizing that program and we have some new interest for next season
Our NorAm team competed in Steamboat Springs where we saw some of our best finishes of the season – Felicia Turcotte with a 2nd place and Zack Zaman with a career-high 3rd place in the FIS race. The crew finished out the season in Mount St. Anne Canada competing after the World Cup on an amazing course built by Red Bull where Declan Murray got a 12th place and Felicia Turcotte a 4th place which should get her some World Cup starts next season.
|
|
| Meanwhile, the Para team was in Canada for 4 World Cup and NorAm races in Big White and Mt. Sima. In World Cup Brenna Huckaby continued to dominate her category with some good finishes by Dennae and Courtney. This secured Brenna the overall Globes. In the NorAm events, Alex Godowski had his best finishes ever with two 2nds and two 3rds while Kate Delson continued to dominate, winning the NorAm cup. Because of the strong finishes by our NorAm athletes, our team was presented with the Team NorAm Cup. |
|
|
In Big Mountain Freeride, Gage and Kaito were both invited to the Junior Championships in Breckenridge. Kaito secured a 3rd place finish which places him in 1st place overall for the season. Unfortunately, Gage fell in the qualifiers but came away with 17th place overall for the season.
Of course, it’s not all about results – those are just a byproduct of the time and energy these athletes put into training. And huge thanks to the coaching staff for being there through all the early mornings and challenging competition travel (as well as the powder days that make it all worthwhile). A little time off for everyone and then we will be looking at spring and summer training to prepare for next season.
~ Lane Clegg
SBSEF Snowboard Director
|
|
Alpine FIS Team:
The dust is starting to settle on another great season and as usual the sprint to the finish line has been fast paced, challenging and fun filled. The beginning of this block started off with a trip to Sun Valley for a Devo series that started on the back of U.S. Senior Nationals. Due to the close proximity of the races, there were a large amount of U.S. Team and other elite level athletes from around the nation that stayed after the completion of U.S. Nationals to compete in our Devo race. This brought the level of competition of our series way way up to a Quasi-NorAM cup of sorts and sort of gave everyone in the region a chance to see what they were made of against a field that hosted the best in the nation on a snow surface that had been prepped well enough to be a World Cup.
|
|
|
Augustus Dain had a stand-out performance as one of the few in the field to ski well beyond their start position, moving from 80th to 31st in the first GS.
After that, everyone had 2 weeks before our final spring series race in Mammoth for Speed, and Palisades Tahoe for Tech kicked off. This allowed for the FIS Team to be home for a mix of forerunning and racing at the Last Chance and Snow Cup races, and a last couple of early mornings. We’ve been notching steady results throughout the season and have seen really good progress in everyone’s skiing so far. We’re excited to go into this last series with some passion and see how we can wrap things up!
~ Brennan Rubie
Head FIS Coach
|
|
Alpine U16 Team:
It’s been a very busy month for the U16 team since the last update with groups going to the Tri Divisional Championships as well as Alaska for Regional Championships and most recently the Snow Cup.
Qualifying for the Tri Div was Sebe B., Alta B., Will B., Everet E., Avery J., Blake L., August M., Georgia M., Mia P., and Gwen S. The conditions for the Super G race at Big Sky were windy and the snow was scarce, however, for many of our U16’s, this was a very successful race. In the top 15 were August in 14th, Will in 12th, Alta in 10th, Sebe in 8th, and Blake in an impressive 4th. The tech race of the Tri was held at Bridger Bowl where Sebe and Blake led the charge landing in 7th and 9th in the GS and 8th and 7th in the SL respectively.
Simultaneous to the Tri Div was the Western Regional U16 Championship at Alyeska Resort in Girdwood, AK. Skiing their way into regional championships was Quinn C., Calvin C., Devon H., Halle H., Molly J., and Fletcher P. The team went a day early to familiarize themselves with the venue but were met with terrible snow conditions that would persist through the entire series.
Starting with the SL on what was the worst surface I have seen in a long time, Devon went from 60th to 33rd and Halle went from 62nd to 20th on their first runs, unfortunately, they both did not cross the finish line on the second. Quinn had an epic SL ending up 13th with the 7th fastest second run.
The surface did not improve for the GS making things extremely difficult for a fair race. Nonetheless, Fletcher went from 72nd to 55th, Quinn 65th to 48th, Devon 75th to 37th and Calvin 49th to 33rd.
The snow went from bad to really bad for the two SG races, however, the SBSEF U16’s persevered in both. Quinn moved up 11 and 23 places, Calvin 23 and 31, Devon 23 spots, Molly 19 and 31 places, and Fletcher jumped 15 and 2 places. Halle had a career best getting on the podium in 2nd place in the first SG. In the second GS she somehow managed to walk away from another horrendous crash, one of many she has taken this year!
Huge congratulations to ALL the SBSEF U16s on their Championships events!!!
|
|
|
The final event of the year for our team was the Snow Cup. It would not have been a Snowbird SL had it not been cold, windy, and snowing! For the first series this year every one of our U16’s who finished either stayed relative to their start or moved up significantly. Top 20 in the Slaloms were Sebe in 11th, Will in 18th, Quinn 9th and 5th, Devon in 12th, Halle in 5th, and Gwen in a career-best SL in 16th.
The sun was out and the snow was nearly ideal for the GS races. Rounding out the top 20 was Quinn in 17th, Calvin inside the top 10 in 10th and 7th, Devon in 15th and 18th, Halle in 11th, Blake in 15th and another career best for Gwen in 14th.
The cowbell of the month goes to Gwen Sullivan for her persistence and her two career-best races at the Snow Cup!
It’s been a season filled with highs and lows for the U16 team, however, the highs have overcome the lows, tremendous progress has been made, and a ton of individual personal growth has been gained. I truly mean it when I say this has been the best U16 team I’ve had!!!
~ Fritz Wood
Head U16 Coach
|
|
Alpine U14 Team:
Snowbird’s U14 Team finished an impressive season at the Championship Events with fast skiing and big smiles. At the Tri-Divisional Championships in Montana, athletes raced SG at Big Sky, with the GS and SL events being held at Bridger Bowl. Heidi and Arlo led the charge for Snowbird’s U14s, Arlo winning the SL and finishing 12 in SG. Heidi finished in 2nd in SL, and raced to a 13th place finish in the GS, was 10th in the SG- with a first-place tie for the overall. Vonn had a fast week with a 5th place finish in the SL and GS, with an 11th place finish in SG. Kyla was top 15 in all 3 races, with Miles finishing top ten in GS and SL. Hendrick had a 9th place finish in the SL and Cody had 2 top ten results. Yasmeen finished 11th in SL- an overall impressive team effort through challenging conditions!
At Sundance for IMD Finals Maja and Winston shined with a 2nd place finish and a 3rd place finish in each of the GS and SL events- way to go for all of our Snowbird athletes at Sundance!
Western Region Championships were held at Grand Targhee this year, with a record 7 athletes who qualified this year. Liz shined with a 12th-place finish in the SG, 4th in the GS and 3rd in the SL. Axl was 5th in the SG, 4th in GS. Cedric was 6th in the SG, 7th in the GS and finished 2nd in the SL- awarding him 3rd overall in the Western Region! Liz and Cedric’s results qualified them both for the Whistler Cup- an international championship event for U14 and U16 athletes in British Columbia, Canada. Cedric had impressive results on the big stage with a 5th place finish in the GS, and 6th in SL. Liz had some really fast first runs- showing she can hang with some of the fastest in the world!
|
|
|
What’s even more impressive than the fast results this season was the progress made this season from each athlete- and the way each athlete cared for their teammates. This was our biggest group of U14s in over a decade (34 U14s), undoubtedly our fastest U14 team by results- but also one of our most cohesive. Our U14 staff could not be more proud of this incredible group of athletes!
~ Ben Reeder
Head U14 Coach
|
|
Alpine Jfast Team:
Jfast finished the 2023 – 2024 season last weekend at the Family Duals. It was a great season with the perfect mix of epic powder, great training, and some incredible results. Below are some of the season highlights:
Of the races held this year, 90% of the time SBSEF U10s and U12s stood on one of the podium steps, a total of 39 times this season. 25 athletes qualified for Intermountain Championships at Tamarack Mountain Resort in Idaho.
The SBSEF U10 group is one of the strongest in the division. In total, the Jfast crew qualified 8 U10s to Intermountain Champs, 4 Girls (Abbie Young, Elka Kerner, Olive Brower, and Violet Loeffler) and 4 boys (Bode Sekaran Chace Kunigenas, Forest Knight, and Gavin Kavanagh). Both the U10 girls and boys put at least one girl on the podium at every South Series race this year, Elka Kirner, Violet Leofler, Olive Brower, Elysia Moreno, Forest Knight, Chase Kunigenas, Gavin Kavanaugh, Crow Call, Callum Apple, and Body Sekaran all had at least one finish in the top 5 this season.
The SBSEF U12 contention was equally impressive. Three U12 girls (Farah Kaukab, Norah Comey, and Eva Widmer) and 3 Boys (Quinn Webster, Gage Swanwick, Declan Morrissey) all had finished in the top five at either a south series or championship race. Nora Comey was this year’s IMD Dual SL champion, and Quinn Webster took home the Slalom title. For the third consecutive year, an SBSEF male athlete took home the overall title at Intermountain Champs. (Patrick Meirowitz ’22, Cedric Sullivan ”23, and Quinn Webster ’24) .
~ Bo Maciejko
Head Jfast Coach
Alpine Director
|
|
| That’s a wrap on another amazing Devo season! All the athletes worked hard and made improvements to their skiing. We were lucky and had a lot of great Powder Days this year. Some standout moments for the year include athletes making their first hike up Baldy. There was a lot of complaining while making the trek up Baldy. The complaints quickly turn into exhilaration and joy as the athletes start skiing. All the coaches love hearing the athletes talk about how awesome their run down Baldy was and then asking when they can do it again. Some other firsts for Devos are skiing the Cirque, Tiger Tail, and Bookends to name a few. Our Devo Good Vibes Only Freeride comp was once again the highlight of the year for many kids. Friday night before the comp we were close to pulling the plug on the event but we got lucky with the weather! The wind didn’t stop us and Silverfox was covered in fresh snow. There were some exciting moments with athletes hitting mustachio, and choosing lines in the trees. We ended the season with our scavenger hunt on the Peruvian side of the mountain and a BBQ and dual race course. It was a lot of fun to see everyone racing each other, coaches, and parents.
|
|
Upcoming Events:
- May Camps
- June 1 – 14: Registration open for returning team members
- June 20 – 30: Registration open for waitlist/new team members
- June 21-30: Alpine Mt Hood camp
- August: Freeride Chile camp
- September: Dryland starts for our comp teams
- September 5: Welcome Back BBQ @ Sugarhouse Park
- September TBA: Fit night at Sports Den
- September 20-21: Annual Ski & Snowboard Swap
- October TBA: Needles Dryland Camp
- November 2: Annual Fall Gala
- November TBA: Alpine Aspen Fall Camp
|
|
| Snowbird Sports Education Foundation
Our mission: “We strive to foster a passion and lifelong love of winter sports and an active outdoor lifestyle while developing the life skills associated with success in all endeavors; sportsmanship, teamwork, discipline, determination and commitment.” |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
