While the balmy January weather may seem like a gift to many, the Dartmouth ski team is keeping their fingers crossed for cold weather and snow. Present conditions in New Hampshire have forced the ski team to travel the country and Canada in search of snow and training time. By the time the snow flies back East and the carnival season opens on Jan. 19, Dartmouth's skiers will be ready and waiting.
The Alpine team traveled to Steamboat Springs, Colo. over Christmas break, where they were able to clock a solid two weeks of training and racing.
"The weather has kept us scrambling," men's coach Peter Dodge said. "But we have been able to maintain most of our usual racing and practice schedules."
"Everyone seems to be getting up to speed quickly," Evan Weiss '06 said. Weiss and several other members of the men's team also traveled to Bethel, Maine after the holidays to compete for four days in the NorAms race series, where they faced off against the U.S. and Canadian ski teams, as well as other collegiate racers.
Women's co-captains Sasha Acher '06 and Alex Fucigna '07 both expressed the team's optimistic outlook on the thus far snow-barren season.
"Everyone in the East has to deal with this problem and it is totally out of our control, so wasting time being frustrated is useless. We just ski when we can and in the meantime try to get excited and mentally prepared for races," Acher said.
"All the other eastern teams are dealing with the same lack of snow too," Fucigna added.
The Nordic team recently returned from Mont St. Anne, in Quebec, where they spent ten days "skiing, eating, skiing, sleeping," according to men's captain Mike Sinnott '07. Much of the team is now in Houghton, Mich. competing at the U.S. National Championships.
After several days of racing, the Dartmouth Nordic squad has made an impressive statement about their potential this season. Three Big Green skiers -- Sinnott, Glenn Randall '09 and Ben True '08, are well positioned to make the U.S. under-23 team, where they would represent the US at the World Championships in Italy.
In the 10k classic race on Jan. 3, Sinnott was the first under-23 finisher, placing 12th overall. Olympian and eight-time national champion Kris Freeman won the race.
In the 15k freestyle on Jan. 4, Randall placed 16th overall and first against under-23 racers. Freeman again took the gold. With Dartmouth skiers competing on par against some of the best in the nation, it seems the team will be more than ready for the collegiate carnival season. That is, of course, if they can find snow.
"We may have to go snow hunting when we get back to campus, or perform some rituals to the snow gods," Susan Dunklee '08 said. The Nordic team appears to share the same optimism as the Alpine squad, however -- a determination not to let the lack of snow hold up their success.
"A major part of Nordic skiing is fitness, and there are a lot of ways to keep this high without snow," Randall said. Mike Sinnott was also undaunted by the warm weather back East.
"Actually last year we were in a very similar situation and had tremendous success, so I think we can pull through," he said. "The snow will come, and when it does, we'll be ready."
This coming week, the Nordic team will return to campus, and the Alpine team will be traveling to various FIS races in Stowe, Vermont, and Bromont and Mont-Tremblant in Quebec. The carnival season begins on Jan. 19 at St. Michaels College in Vermont.
