The UCSD Ski and Snowboard team takes on Lake Placid, New York to compete in Nationals 2024! Getting an early start to our weeklong trip cross country we all met at the San Diego Airport at 6am. Emily Wei, Jordan Flood, Ben Scheerger, Lancia Carson, Sierra Scarlett, Mia Bullaro, Ivan Ijzerman, Varun Suklikar, Seiji Minowada, Austin Calza, and Adela Hancova await to board our flight to Newark, New Jersey. We arrive at the airport with boot bags, poles, suitcases, and our freshly tuned skis by our very own President Varun. We arrive in Newark and after 5 hours on the airplane we go to grab our SUV to drive to Lake Placid. With a few hiccups from Hertz not being able to let us rent our vehicle we turn to another car renting company and head in our two minivans to grab some authentic pizza. After another 4-5 hours we have it to the cute town of Lake Placid.

Sunday we got some well deserved sleep after a long day of travel and got started on our homework so we can enjoy our week on the slopes. We use Monday to finish up the rest of our homework for the week and our President registers us and brings us our racing bibs. That night we had the opening ceremony where we got to wave our UCSD flag at the Hockey Olympic stadium from 1980. We were hosted with dinner, excitement and ice skating! We got a good look at our competition and headed to get a good night's rest for our first racing day!

6:45 am wake up call Tuesday morning, first racing day! What do we have on the schedule: Women Alpine Giant Slalom, Women’s Ski Rail Jam, Men’s Ski Skier Cross, Women’s Boarder Rail Jam! The stoke is high this morning with our sponsor Celsius, we got some caffeine down and we’re ready to roll! Whiteface Mountain is hosting all the athletes and conditions are quite questionable. With more gravel and dirt in sight than snow, it didn't stop UCSD’s Ski Team.

Women GS go first to inspect the icy and rutted out slope. Jordan, Lancia, and Emily looking professional as ever, got their speed suits on, our novice Adelka didn’t get the memo and had her baggy jacket on and twin tips, but that didn't stop her from trying her best! A warm day on the mountain keeps the smiles abundant! Jordan goes first for UCSD and we are told that the snow is not too good, all the women finish and no DNF’s for run one! Adelka leaves after run one to go to Rail Jam, unfortunately she had no time to inspect, as they were running the same events at the same time. Wasn’t Adelka’s hottest day but she finished and ran back up the hill to finish off GS’s run 2! Unfortunately Lancia, DNF’d but she was still stoked because she left everything on the slope and had a fun run! Adelka and Emily tried their hardest and our shining star Jordan finished 33rd Nationally! As a team we finished 14th overall making us in the top half of schools!

Women Boarder’s were representing UCSD so well! Although commentators and spectators were confused on where we train they showed up, both finishing top ten! First round they made it to the finals, hitting rail’s, boxes, whaletail boxes and more! Sierra finished 6th nationally and Mia finished 10th! That’s what we like to see, and as a team they got us in 4th place across all schools!

Skier Cross is one of the things we were looking forward to the most as we haven't competed in it all season! We had Seiji and Ivan take the fun course on Whiteface that Tuesday for men skiers. Ivan made it to the next round which took the top 30 finishers. Ivan, our best freshman, finished 12th nationally! Him and Seiji both enjoyed the course and finished 10th as a team!

Wednesday another early wake up as we hurry to make inspection. Ben and Seiji take on Rail Jam early in the morning. Hitting rails like it’s no big deal. Pressure is on as their opponents are trying backflips and other mind boggling maneuvers. Ben finished 16 overall, just one off of qualifying for finals, and Seiji ended up 40th overall. Both Ben and Seiji tried some new tricks on the rails, with Seiji getting his first 270 out of a rail and Ben landing his first 450 out of a rail. Unfortunately, it was raining throughout the entire event, so the boys ended up rather soaked at the end of the day, but they were still stoked to be out there shredding.

Women skiers headed over to skier cross, excited for the fun event. We were given one inspection and one fast inspection, meaning we could do it as if it was the actual race. Jordan made the top 30 allowing for her to move on to the funniest and most competitive part where 4 girls go at the exact same time, where you can push and shove yourself to the front if you have enough skill for that. She finished 26th overall and made us proud!

After women ski, boarder’s to the cross slope! With both of our ladies making it to the finals, putting a colored cover on their helmets to be able to tell which boarder finishes first on the camera, we had Sierra finished in 9th overall and Mia in 26th! Our women boarders really keep us high on the leaderboard fishing off 8th overall as a team!

Men’s Alpine also competed on Wednesday in Men’s GS. Going on with the running theme of the week, the course was rutted out and icy, in stark contrast to the slushy snow on the rest of the mountain. Regardless, our boys soldiered on, with Ivan snagging 54th overall, Seiji ending up in 84th, and Varun unfortunately sliding out on his first run and ending up with a DNF.

Thursday bright and early we had a colder day and our women boarders rushed to the mountain as slalom was awaiting their inspection. Conditions were rough, with zero visibility at the top of our mountain and snow as hard as a rock. Not a good day for Sierra to feel a minor injured with her knee. With conditions so rough, she does her first run and knicks her board in a gate, but gets right up and still manages to place 9th overall. Mia looked solid and fast as she placed 21st overall! Right next door we had skiers inspecting their run as well. With lines getting longer and longer Adelka, with the advice from leadership, decides to begin lapping slopestyle instead of inspecting Slalom as they were running them at the same time again. Our three other skiers make it to the top of the mountain with enough time for an inspection! With conditions so rough, over 50% of skiers DNF’d (did not finish) but our girls pulled through! It was a rutted out course and our girls still managed to make it all the way down without missing the gates! Meanwhile women's ski slopestyle began, which definitely had its own controversies as the jumps were getting pretty soft and almost nobody could even get over the knuckle. Girls who had 360’s on lock couldn't land them and about 90% of competitors didn't make it over the knuckle, making it rough to show our skill level. Adelka, fell on her first run as she knicked her tip during her 360 on the first jump after the boxes. She had one more run to show her skillset and kept it safe, which unfortunately didn't score her enough points to make it to the finals, barely missing it and ending up in nineteenth place. Ben and Seiji also competed in slopestyle on Thursday, but unfortunately neither of them had great performances due to the not so great conditions. Ben unfortunately fell both runs and ended up in twenty sixth place with Seiji ending up sitting in thirty first place overall.

Friday was once again an early wakeup call, with our Male Alpine Skiers and Female Snowboarders needing to be on the mountain at 8am. Our Alpine skiers headed up for slalom on a once again icy and rutted course, but they continued to push through the awful conditions, completing all their runs for the day. Ivan ended up with seventy fourth overall, Seiji ended up in ninety fifth overall, and Varun unfortunately DNF’d once again. On the Female Boarders side, they headed over to the park to compete in slopestyle. Luckily, it was a bit cooler today, so the course was not quite as slow as it was for skiers, but it still wasn't great. Sierra unfortunately did not compete, but Mia shredded it up, ending up 13th overall.

Saturday was our final day of competition, we were all pretty tired at this point, but we had to make it out for the last day. Saturday had Dual Slalom for both male and female skiers, arguably one of the most fun events as teams go head to head on adjacent courses, racing each other to see who moves on to the next bracket. Unfortunately, our first opponent was one of the best teams in the league, the University of Maine at Farmington, so we got knocked out in the first round. Regardless, our athletes all put up formidable performances and we were satisfied with the result. The other event running was Snowboard Giant Slalom, where Mia and Sierra fought through the predictably bad conditions, with Sierra taking a formidable 8th place overall and Mia pulling in an impressive fourteenth place finish. With Nationals over, we headed back to the cabin to get ready for closing ceremonies, where we had a nice catered dinner, and then headed back to the cabin to pack up for our long day of travel on Sunday.

Sunday we headed out early in the morning to get to Newark for our flight. After such a long trip, leaving was a very melancholy feeling, both excited to go home and a little sad that it was time to get studying for finals. We took off from Newark at 5:45 and ended up back home in San Diego at about 9:30. It was an incredible trip, and we’re all stoked for our wonderful athletes and their performances at Nationals.