A field of Dreams

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

By Brigid Mander

Jackson Hole, Wyo.-Orange crash nets lining the slopes of Snow King are nothing new, but in this Olympic year, the ski racers training at the Town Hill are the latest in a long line of elite racers to train slopes here. Snow King is a special place for many residents, and beginning in 1939 when the resort opened, it has been a center for summer and winter sports, and a hub of ski culture in Jackson. 

Throughout the winter, local racers and ski clubs train, setting up courses and perfecting their skills, hoping to move up through the ranks of the ski racing establishment.

  However, it is the fact that racers of the highest caliber from all over the world training for the sport’s biggest events have joined the local kids training at Snow King for almost two decades that gives it some serious credentials as more than just a town hill.

Teams and athletes who could train anywhere in North America and around the world choose to come and work out on Snow King.

While there is plenty of freeskiing at Snow King, and deep powder days on its steep north facing slopes are legendary, the lower slopes are an optimal place for alpine race training.

Beginning in 1994, with the construction of the Cougar triple chair, some of the most legendary names in ski racing have carved turns in to Snow King’s slopes.
“It is like a Field of Dreams kind of thing – if you build it, they will come,” said Jackson Hole-based ski photographer Jonathan Selkowitz.  What seemed like a relatively simple action, adding a chair to the lower slopes as well as snowmaking capabilities, which most modern ski hills have, quickly attracted some of the world’s top competitive ski teams to the area.

The ski hill has nearly perfect conditions for training for technical events. 
“Snow King has a great steep pitch, a good consistently steep pitch.  It’s steeper than all the places in Colorado for training, and it is all north-facing, with great quality snow,” said Selkowitz, who has traveled around the world to shoot the U.S. Ski Team in training and competition, including three Olympics. 

The last time the U.S. team trained at Snow King was in 2004, for pre-World Cup training and to compete in a Nor-Am race. Right now, during the Vancouver Olympics, the excitement of having U.S. Ski Team athletes back is palpable in town, especially around Snow King.

For Jim Sullivan, who has worked at Snow King for 36 seasons, 25 of those as ski area manager, it is business as usual to have the best racers in the world carrying on their daily schedules at the resort.  After the triple chair and snowmaking were put in, it didn’t take long for elite teams to arrive. 

“In 1996 the first international team, the French, came,” Sullivan said. “They came because the World Cup opener was in Park City.” 

The history and heritage of ski racing at Snow King began long before the triple chair, however.  In the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s, Snow King was the place to have a race in the Northern Intermountain region.

Racers came from Park City and Sun Valley for tri-state races, and Snow King’s reputation as a ski racing venue was cemented, Sullivan said. 

“What we are doing today is built upon the foundation laid by people like Neil Rafferty, Ginny  Huidekoper, and Don MacLeod, and people that ran those races back in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s,” he said.

As ski racing entered the modern era, races and speed competitions were still held at Snow King during the 70’s and 80’s, and the U.S. team was definitely aware of  Snow King as a quality race and training venue. After the French in 1996, teams from Finland, Norway, and Germany also came. 

The World Cup opener, held in Park City until 2003, brought a host of international competitors for pre-World Cup training to Snow King.  In 2002, when the Olympics were hosted by Salt Lake City, Snow King was again an ideal location.
Although the U.S. team was training in Salt Lake, Jackson hosted Olympic athletes from Norway, France, Spain, Germany, Slovenia and Finland. 

“They knew about us from World Cup training,” said Sullivan.  “I took the Norwegians out when they were here…to the Cowboy Bar, and shooting pool at the Rancher. They were perfect gentlemen.”

It was really convenient for those Olympic Games, Sullivan said, since Snow King not only has the terrain for training, but for the 2002 Olympics, it was the same altitude, same kind of snow, and really close to the actual Games.  That year, nine of the 30 medals awarded in skiing were won by athletes who had trained at Snow King. 

“We were very proud of them.  Even though they weren’t U.S. athletes, it’s the Olympic spirit,” said Sullivan, beaming.

Past visitors read like a roster of some of the most legendary names in ski racing.  Sullivan leans back and ticks off a few:

“Tamara McKinney, Picabo Street, Annemarie Proell, Sarah Schleper, Bode Miller, Phil Mahre, Tommy Moe, Kjetil-Andre Aamodt, Lasse Kjus, Luc Alphand … I could go back ...”

In the past, Snow King has also hosted the Junior National Championships, the technical events of the World Cup (with speed events at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort), NCAA National Championships, Peuguot Pro Series, NorAm Cups, as well as a host of FIS races. 

This year, the French and U.S. Women’s ski team chose to train at Snow King in a National Development System race for women from all over the globe, before making their ways to the Vancouver Games.

Both of the coaches accompanying the athletes have a history with the ski hill themselves, and so they knew firsthand about the little Wyoming training gem.
Head technical coach Trevor Wagner lived in Jackson until he was 13, and skied for the Jackson Hole Ski Club, and coach Seth McCadam spent 8 years coaching for the JHSC until he was hired by the U.S. Ski Team.

“We train all over the world but Snow King offers some of the best conditions anywhere.  With it’s great snowmaking, varying terrain, quick turn around [lift access back to the top of the course] convenient accommodations, and a long ski racing history make Snow King a perfect venue for our pre-Olympic training camp,” McCadam said.

Olympic athlete Megan McJames has been training at Snow King since last week, the last stop in readying for her first Olympics. 

“I grew up racing here,” said the Utah-born skier, who will be racing for the U.S. in the Giant Slalom.  “It’s kind of a warm, second-home feeling, and I was really psyched to be here.”

McJames commented that the venue is really comparable to another training camp the ski team utilizes in Austria, but the convenience of the hotel, race course and town, coupled with the very mellow atmosphere of Jackson are plusses that are not found everywhere. Racers can just jump on the triple chair, make quick laps of the course, and watch their teammates and competitors take runs while they ride up the lift. 

Away from crowds, media hubbub, overbearing fans, and lift lines, the athletes are able to just focus on skiing and their dry-land training, which for U.S. skiers includes spin-biking, hot-cold treatments, massage, and light strength maintenance at Teton Sports Club. 

Coming to Jackson also allows people who have not really experienced much of the culture of the rural American West to check it out.  The ski team coaches said they have been introducing some of their European staff members to game meats and cowboy culture.

“We would love to train at Snow King more often,” McCadam said, “but the World Cup does not come near the area very much. “

However, the U.S. Ski Team is interested in bringing the U.S. Nationals back to Snow King and JHMR in the future, but nothing has been finalized, according to McCadam.

For the local athletes who train at the area, being able to work alongside Olympic athletes is a rare chance to see up close what is possible with dedicated training. 
“It’s super inspiring, it’s awesome to have this caliber of athlete milling around, and in the JHSC tuning room, talking to the kids is fantastic,” said JHSC Director Carrie Pennington.  “It’s good for the kids to see that the hard work pays off, and to encourage them to stick with it.”

With the JHSC, Jackson Hole High School Ski Team, Pinedale skiers, and even the little Snow King Rafferty racers all on the hill during the pre-Olympic and Olympic training, it is the perfect opening for the kids to step it up. 

“It’s something that just raises the level of excitement and level of skiing for everybody. The kids are training harder - I think they are inspired by it,” said Bridger Call, one of the JHSC coaches.

The JHSC hosted races on Sunday and Monday that involved the U.S. women, and elite level junior racers from around the country, including JHSC’s Kelly McKenzie.  “We were psyched to get this race,” Pennington said. “It’s a big deal, and it is great for the kids as well as the community.”

While Snow King’s Sullivan and others on the management team involved in daily operations at Snow King are thrilled to be recognized, and held in high esteem by elite ski racers as a good training ground, they resist being categorized as just a ski racer’s hill.

Only about 20 percent of the hill is fenced off during the Olympic training, which takes place mostly in the mornings. Racers are on the hill from before the chairs open, at 9 a.m., and usually off the snow by noon, with optional on-snow sessions in the afternoon.

The racecourses are also what is called ‘watered,’ which is the process of adding water to softer snow to make it harder, and therefore more consistent for more racers and more training runs.  It also makes the skiing more difficult for the athletes, so that they can hone their technical skills even further, and simulate what the actual race snow is like. 

For the ski area management, as well as the Snow King Ski Patrol, it can be a balancing act between recreational skiers and racers.  Occasionally some individuals complain about the fencing-off of terrain, and the focus on the racers. 
“We try to take in both viewpoints, and try to keep everybody happy, of course,” Sullivan said.

Locals still skin up the hill all day, and beginners are still learning how to turn, and business as usual carries on at the ski area.  But while he loves the freeskiing aspects of the hill, as well as the high level of racer that utilizes the slopes of Snow King, Sullivan wants to make sure the whole community remembers that the ski culture, as well as ski-racing heritage off the hill, is accessible to everyone.
All kinds of community races and events are hosted, often by the JHSC, that anyone can enter and have a good experience. 

“My first time ever ski racing was here at Snow King … in 1974, and I asked Bill Briggs, who was the director of ski school then, if he had any advice for me.  ‘Yeah, just finish the course,’ was all he said.  And I did! But I just do it for fun, never to be a competitor - I do the Town Downhill, and a few master’s races, just for the fun of it.”

Running a little hill with so much history and that holds so much passion for locals is a big job, but it is a very rewarding one for all of those involved. 
“Twenty-five years goes by pretty quick,” Sullivan said.  JHW

PERMALINK:
A field of Dreams | Planet JH News Article: Cover Stories

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