Well, the U16’s got off to an excellent start to the season at Mt. Spokane. We arrived on Friday to train, and were greeted with the typical Spokane Fog. Not having John Ellis with us, we missed his infamous Fog Wax. I was hoping to find some Fog B Gone, but none available. Anyway , we also had some freezing rain over 4 inches of powder, leg breaker snow, but the racers and I were determined to train, so we took four runs of course prep and then managed 7 excellent training runs as the weather cleared!! I know Hailey doesn’t believe in creating good Karma, but all that hard worked paid off and we had a great GS race! Despite the recent difficult training situation at home, we managed some excellent SL training in Green Valley the previous weekend and the kids got up early on race days to get some extra laps on the warm up SL courses and it really helped.  We were well prepared for SL and it went really well.

Devon Toribio had an extraordinary weekend and won the GS and the Two SL races. Reed Lower shared the podium with Devon and came third in a SL.  

More Podiums came on the girls side every day. Sydney Janssen showed off her new improved skiing skills from all her hard work in the gym and extensive off season training with two 3rd place finishes in SL, followed closely by Sadie Kerslake   4th Hailey Holm 6th and 10th, Abby Orford, 9th and 11th, and our rookie Piper Okane is closing in on the top 20 with a 24th in the first SL. 

In the GS event Sadie came 5th,  Tess 7th,  Hailey 20th ,  Piper 37th and the host of boys with much improved skiing ,  again Devon 1st, Connor Niemann 16th,  Will 23, Max 26,  Wyatt 27, Sebastian 27, Justin 40 . Our ultra rookie Carson Homewood had  his second day in a true GS course and showed us some great skiing but failed to make a finish.  His determination will go a long way as he begins to learn this fun but brutally competitive sport. Connor Budd went down and suffered a concussion, but hopes to be back soon. He was feeling ok as he left for the weekend. Get well quickly Connor!

The other boys fared well as group in SL as well. Tristan 12th and 13th and Will 16th , 14th,  Max 18th , 30th,  Sebastian 19th, 19th,  consistent!!, Blake 22, Wyatt 23,24, Thomas 26, Justin 29, 28,