It's a big step up from the Nancy Greene Ski League to racing at the club level with an alpine team and a bunch of young racers are about to find that out for themselves this weekend at Purden Ski Village.
The Prince George Alpine Ski Club is hosting the first northern zone race of the season, the Teck Resources/BC Alpine slalom event today and Sunday at Purden.
For eight Prince George Alpine Ski team members racing today in the under-12 age category -- Ella Frampton, Jacob Hoskins, Isaac Hausot, Jack Logan, Jasmine McCall, Erica McCallum, Zoe Pohl and Adree Brulotte, they will get their first crack at sorting out zone bragging rights today, starting at 10 a.m., when the races begin.
"Most of the field this weekend are under-12 and for a lot of them this will be their first zone race and it's exciting for them," said Kali Holahan, the Prince George Alpine Ski Racers U-14 and U-16 coach.
"It's kind of cool for them to see the older racers and how they prepare for their races. I have such a small group of older skiers so the younger ones will get to warm up with us and do course inspection with us as well. Some of them are still learning the concept of course inspection."
Located about 70 kilometres east of the city off Highway 16, Purden somehow avoided the rain clouds which descended upon the city on Thursday. While there's not an overabundance of snow, with the slopes covered with a packed base of about 40 centimetres, course workers dug deep into the dirt to anchor the poles which will make up the 42-gate slalom course.
Skiers from clubs in Prince George, Quesnel, Mackenzie. Williams Lake, Smithers and Terrace will take their turns racing the clock in two individually-timed heats each day. The cumulative times for the two runs determine the final placings.
The Prince George team has four under-16 and three under-14 ski racers entered this weekend. In the U-16 class are Lucas Gairns, 15; Kaitlyn Martin, 15; Isabelle Gibson, 14 and Zac Hoskins 14. Gairns is coming off a 12th place finish in a Teck provincial series giant slalom race at Sun Peaks three weeks ago. Martin was 25th at the same race and Gibson placed 32nd.
"Lucas has been with the club for seven or eight years and he's the veteran of our group," said Holahan. "He's a role model for some of the other young skiers. Kaitlyn has quite a few years with the club as well."
The U-14 skiers from Prince George -- Charlotte Gibson, 12; Melinda Kobasiuk, 12; and Hayes Layton, 13 -- raced at Sun Peaks two weekends ago.
Allice Muirhead, a former Prince George ski team racer, is coaching the U-12 group, which also includes Isabel Lindsay, who is unavailable to race this weekend.
This is the first of three northern zone races in the Teck northern series. The series stops at Troll Mountain near Quesnel, Feb. 13-14. The northern zone championships are set for April 8-10 at Smithers. Points earned this weekend will be used to help skiers qualify for the Whistler Cup and Western Canadian championships at Whistler the first week of April.
