Once a week, members of the Pinedale alpine skiing team pile into a bus to begin a 75-mile drive to Jackson. The Wranglers are a ski team without a hill. “It’s just been dry land and weight-training,” Pinedale senior Jep Richie said. “It’s hard to get in a ski. That’s about it.”If Richie and his teammates need a motto for this alpine skiing season, transition and adversity wouldn’t be a bad place to start. Pinedale’s White Pine Ski Area didn’t open this season for the first time since 1999, leaving the Wranglers without a home hill to practice on.
As a result, the team heads to Snow King in Jackson once a week to get some work in on the slopes. Pinedale coach Max Lundberg said the adjustment to training has been a challenge. “But it’s working out great,” Lundberg said. “The kids are doing well. We’re very pleased with them, so we’re happy right now. We obviously look forward to getting back to our home area. “But we just have to work where we are until we get that settled and then we’ll be back where we want to be.”
For now, that work involves dry-land training, supplemented with weight-training and other aerobic activities. During the winter break the team went to Snow King twice a week and basically skied all day, Richie said. But Friday’s opening invite of the season — Kelly Walsh hosted a two-day slalom event on Casper Mountain — was just the fifth time all year the team has skied with gates. “It’s definitely been a difficult transition,” Pinedale senior John Cooney said. “I’m not used to my skis as much as I was last year [at this time]. “I guess later on in the season, we’ll definitely get better. But right now, we’re still trying to get to that point.”
A group of Pinedale community members and an out-of-state investor bought White Pine in October 2010 to save it from possible bankruptcy and inevitable closure, and hopefully bridge the gap between ownerships. The group simply didn’t have enough time or money to maintain upkeep on the resort year-round.
There are talks among those involved with the ski area to pursue options as a non-profit, and they may try to open the slopes again next winter if a better solution can’t be found. But there is also a potential sanctioning issue. The Wyoming High School Activities Association requires six member schools to support a sport for the athletic activity to remain sanctioned (six schools currently offer alpine skiing) and if participation drops below the required number for two years, the WHSAA will drop the sport. It happened to gymnastics following the 2009-10 academic year after only three schools remained. If the resort doesn’t re-open next winter — or closes its slopes for good — the school may be forced to look at the long-term viability of the program.
“Over the long-term, how long is the school willing to support the extra expenditure of driving up to Jackson to train? I don’t know,” Lundberg said. “But the school has been great. “We couldn’t ask for more support than we’re getting out of the school administration.”The uncertainty has affected numbers. Both boys and girls teams graduated a large number of skiers, but Lundberg said the team usually sits north of 20. The Wranglers have only 11 skiers this year and just three girls.
“It’ll come back up,” said Lundberg, who returned this year to head the team after a short retirement. “We’re working hard to build it. We’ve got great kids.”Which did make the season-opening meet a welcome relief for those skiers, even if was an admittedly rough start. “It’s good to know where we’re sitting,” Cooney said. “Because now we know we’re nowhere where we need to be.”