The Inside Edge - Snow blankets Schweitzer
n What a week at Schweitzer! — After four feet of snow over the weekend, another two feet are forecast for Thursday. There were no gates to be found last weekend, just lots of happy racers joining in the fun.
n World Cup update — The World Championships kicked off in St. Moritz, Switzerland this week with the ladies’ Super G. Pacific Northwest alumni, Laurenne Ross, was the top US finisher in 14th. Lindsey Vonn skied out. Watch here for a full report next week.
n Emerald Empire League No. 1 — Due to the size of last week’s article, here’s the late report on the Giant Slalom races hosted at Mt Spokane 10 days ago. A number of SARS and Independence athletes competed in Emerald Empire Youth League action. Avery Edmundson was the top local racer, finishing 6th and 8th for U12s. Erika Avery finished 7th on Saturday, but wasn’t able to finish on Sunday despite a fast first run.
On the Boys’ side, Klein Fragoso finished 11th amongst U12 boys on Saturday, but didn’t finish Sunday. Crosby Schmidt finished 21st amongst U12s. The series continues this weekend with two Slalom races at 49 Degrees North.
n Starlight Racing begins Friday — With a medieval theme and night racing, one can only imagine some of the team names. Our choice as name of the week is “Our skis are dragon.” The fast men on the night were Chris Acosta, Alex Wohlaib and Scott Barksdale, all within .6 of a second. But welcome to beer league, Chris. With the addition of dinosaur factors, Barksdale and Wohlaib jumped ahead into the top two spots. Courtney Altringer, Sarah Hawn and Lynn DiBenedetto were the fastest lady skiers.
Top snowboarders were Shawn Taylor and Tracy Tuttle. Dylan Taylor and Kerri Kuntz were the fastest telemark racers. The snow should be soft and the ruts deep when competition resumes this Friday.
n Potpourri — Busy weekend coming up, with the Youth Ski League at 49 Degrees North and U16 and above at Mission Ridge. Full details here next week. Any comments, recommendations or contributions to this column may be sent to Shep Snow by email at shep@thesnowschool.com. Negative feedback should be sent to someone else.
The Inside Edge runs every Thursday during ski season in the Bee sports.