This past weekend, the UC San Diego Ski and Snowboard Team made the trek to Bear Valley for our second race of the season! With a winter storm rolling in, midterms looming, and the long drive keeping some of the squad home, but those who made it brought the energy.

We kicked things off with slopestyle on Friday, sending it on a fun course set up by the Bear Valley park crew. The landings were soft, the lips were slow, but that didn’t stop us from making the most of it. Ben Scheerger put down a stellar run, just missing the podium by 2.5 points and locking in a solid 4th place finish. As the day wrapped up, the hype was real for what could have been the powder day of the season, with over 30 inches of snow in the forecast. But as the sun set, our dreams melted away. The snow turned to rain, and just like that, the perfect storm became a soggy nightmare.

Saturday morning, we woke up to a grand total of 0 inches of fresh snow and a whole lot of rain. Still, the team rallied for Giant Slalom and Rail Jam, pushing through the wet conditions. In Women’s Ski, Chaney Szeto powered through to take 5th, with Lancia Carson close behind in 8th. With rain dumping all day, we stayed on the hill just long enough to get our runs in before retreating to dry land.

By Sunday, the weather had won with the remaining events being canceled due to poor snow conditions. It wasn’t the weekend we had planned, but we still made the best of it, embracing the weather and getting in as much riding as we could.

Next stop: Mammoth! Let’s hope for better snow and bigger sends.