Both snowboarding and skiing come with plenty of challenges.
Sometimes you’re racing a rival. Sometimes a teammate. Sometimes you’re competing with yourself.
However, the competitors for the Tualatin High School snowboarding and ski club teams have spent this winter season combating one antagonist more than any other: Mother Nature.
Much of the West Coast, including Oregon, has seen historically low snowfall this season, leading some resorts to close runs or limit operations.
Both the Tualatin snowboard and ski teams have had events canceled, moved to different days, or moved to different locations.
However, Jeff Smoot, head coach of the school’s ski team, said the athletes in those sports are well-equipped to handle such situations.
“One great aspect of this sport is the camaraderie and figuring it out together,” he said. “You’re always dependent on the weather, so being on the ski team will teach you to be adaptable. Even in a good snow year, conditions change. Plans change. You adapt to that.”
Lucas Jacobson, a senior on the snowboarding team, said it’s a bit disheartening to see the lack of snow this year compared to his previous three years on the team.
“I’m just glad there’s enough snow so we can ride at all,” he said. “I almost thought at one point in time we wouldn’t have a snowboarding season.”
Junior Sophia Lowery said it can be a bit sad to see the mountain so bare, especially when there are patches of grass around.
“It’s nice that we’ve still been able to get up there,” she said. “Any day at the mountain is a good day.”
Teams for all skills
Jacobson and Lowery come to the snowboard team from varying degrees of experience, and that’s how the coaches and parent volunteers involved with the clubs want it.
Lowery has been going up to the mountain with her family since she was five. Her older brother was on the team, so she remembers going to see his competitions and joining the club when she got to high school.
Jacobson said he had been on a snowboard maybe once as a child, but that’s it. He saw the team’s table at the club fair his freshman year and thought it sounded pretty fun. He gave it a shot and took to the sport quickly, he said.
“I knew nothing when I first started at all,” he said. “It was all a new experience. Even now, I’m still learning new things I knew nothing about.”
Brandy Shrope, the parent advisor of the snowboard club, said the team welcomes riders with all levels of experience and will work with that student to improve and feel more confident.
“We usually always have one or two who have never done it before,” she said. “We have a great coach that gets them going, and, typically, most kids when they’re just starting out their freshman year, they won’t compete in every race. They’re always encouraged to compete, but nobody is pressured to if they don’t feel ready for it.”
Smoot said the same thing for the ski team. One thing that’s a little different on the ski side of things is that Tualatin teams up with Tigard and Newberg to create TNT. It helps keep the club’s numbers up, Smoot said. They train together throughout the season, but compete in races as separate schools.
“It gives the kids a feel for being on a larger team, and they get a lot of friendships,” he said. “We get all ranges and abilities that way, too. We don’t really get kids who ski for club teams outside of school, but we get kids who grew up skiing with their family and kids whose third time skiing is with us. We’re getting kids who can barely get their skis on and get down the hill to competing in races and getting top-10 finishes.”
When Lowery joined the team as a freshman, she did compete since she had so much experience.
“I was a little bit nervous at the beginning, but I had my brother and another girl I knew were competing, and they helped me,” she said. “It was definitely worth it. I made it to state in the banked slalom.”
Jacobson said he also competed in his freshman year once he got comfortable with the sport.
“I was really putting myself out there and competed in everything I could,” he said. “It sparked more love for the sport. We encourage anyone with any skill to compete. It gives you more experience just to do anything on the mountain.”
Less snow, added challenges
And that’s a big reason why the coaches and volunteers were so worried about the low snowpack and its impact on the team, beyond the potential for fewer days competing and training on the mountain.
“It’s been very stressful,” Shrope said. “I worry about the new kids loving it and wanting to come back next year. I wanted my seniors to have great senior seasons and showcase their talents.”
In a typical year, the snowboarding team goes up to the mountain to train once a week. The kids on the team leave school a bit early to head up to Mount Hood around 2 p.m. and stay there until the course closes at 9 p.m., Shrope said.
Smoot said the ski team also goes up to the mountain once a week in a typical season, sometimes twice a week depending on where the competitions are on the schedule. This year has been more difficult, of course.
“Nobody signs up for a ski team to be doing dryland work in the weight room,” he said.
The more chances to be out on the mountain also give the kids more chances to try the different events and see which they like most. In skiing, there is slalom and giant slalom, which are both timed races where the skier has to maneuver around gates facing certain directions.
Snowboarding has a few more options. It also has a slalom race, then BoarderX, which is a race where you’re racing against three other racers at the same time. There are also halfpipe and slopestyle competitions, with courses featuring boxes, rails, and jumps for competitors to pull off tricks.
Lowery said she likes slalom and BoarderX the most, though she has also done slopestyle. She said she didn’t do halfpipe last year, and her schedule as a member of the Tualatin cheer team means she’ll have to miss a competition later in the season.
Jacobson said he has tried everything and hopes to compete in all the events this season for his senior year. He likes slopestyle and the racing events the most, but said it’s worth giving them all a try to see how it plays out.
Both Lowery and Jacobson said that competing is only part of the draw of being on the club team. It’s also about connection, whether that means meeting new people or just feeling more connected to yourself and your place in the world.
“When I’m up there, I feel free,” Lowery said. “I can really sit in my own thoughts.”
Jacobson agreed, saying sometimes he just marvels at getting to go up to the mountain so much and revel in its beauty.
“When people think about snowboarding, people think of the Olympics and people doing five backflips or a 1060 rotation,” he said. “It scares people. That’s not really what snowboarding is. It’s about being in nature and being with the community. I’ve met so many amazing people just from sitting next to them on a chairlift.”
