Although the weather forecast called for freezing drizzle, the skies cleared and conditions were good for the Moose Mountain Invite at Lutsen Mountains on Friday, January 23. Above left: Reilly Wahlers, Madysen McKeever and Hanna Borson enjoy the beautiful day on Moose Mountain. Above: Sophomore Logan Backstrom won second place at the Moose Mountain Invite. Left: Erik Lawler made all the right moves, taking the bronze.
High School Alpine Ski Teams from Duluth East, Brainerd, Hibbing and Virginia traveled north to battle it out with each other and the Cook County Alpine Vikings at the Moose Mountain Invite on Friday, January 23. The forecast did not look good for skiing two runs of Slalom on Caribou run— 33° F, under mostly cloudy skies, fog and a 70 percent chance of freezing drizzle.
Coach Rick Backstrom and I met over at Moose Mountain at daybreak to look over the conditions and courses we had set the previous evening and get things started. The forecasted ice storm had blown through about 3 a.m. and lasted for a couple hours. By first light the temperature had dropped into the teens and the entire run was a thin sheet of ice. I was thankful we had set a technically challenging course because the conditions were scary, fast. The weather people couldn’t have been more wrong, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and after all the racers inspected and the morning sun came out, the layer of ice disappeared and it turned out to be a perfect bluebird day.
Just to be on the safe side, Ski Patrol members Matt Cartes and Courtney Johnson came over and put up a few more safety nets and the kids started racing on time at 10 a.m. First up for Cook County was senior co-captain Ava McMillan who looked great at the top of the course but bobbled down on the lower pitch in the super-fast conditions. She finished 12th in her first attempt, but was rock solid skiing in her second (7th) earning 10th overall.
Next up Reilly Wahlers flew down Caribou (2nd) in her first run and skied a fast second run, holding onto 2nd place and a trip to the podium!
Sela Backstrom was next. She pushed it a little too hard on the lower pitch, blew out and hiked earning a second run finishing (20th) followed by Alyssa Martinson who did the same thing in a different part of the course finishing the day at the back of the pack. Morgan Weyrens Welch is a hard-working three-sport athlete. She is in the weight room all the time and has been steadily improving all season. She put together two great runs and finished the day in 7th place. Santina McMillan continues to improve and ski consistently, making no mistakes finishing 16th.
Course worker and forerunner Jim Elverhoy said, “The great part about the Moose Mountain Invite is the Slalom courses are 45-50 seconds long. That’s at least 15 seconds longer than any other venues in the section and it’s a lot of fun for the kids.”
On the boys’ side I was working down on the bottom pitch aka “the waterfall” and watched the first two boys blow out hard in the same place. A problem with hosting races is there is so much work involved that we sometimes don’t have the depth to provide the course reports and support to our team that we do when we are on the road.
I crossed my fingers and watched our first seed skier Will Lamb ski the bottom pitch, no problem. He put together two solid runs and won 1st place.
Next up for Cook County was Logan Backstrom, who made a fantastic recovery in the trouble spot and also threw down two great runs winning 2nd place.
Eric Lawler continues to work hard, ski faster and improve. He proved it to himself and the team with a 3rd place finish in his first attempt, 7th in his second—and partly because of all the crashes in this race—combined with some great skiing ended the day in 3rd place. We were really proud of these three boys with their clean sweep of the podium!
Ezra Lunde rose to the occasion with two exciting runs (7th) followed by fast skiing by Will Surbaugh (9th) and quick footed Masen McKeever (13th).
Course worker and CCHS Alpine alumni Craig Horak said, “Both courses were challenging and ran very well. It was a perfect day to come out, lend a hand and watch the show.”
Other Cook County racers competing were True Neis, Elsa Lunde, Haley Yoki, Madysen McKeever, Hanna Borson, Isak Terrill, Lauren Thompson, Halle Lamb and Lynden Blomberg.
Our Viking boys’ team won first place, the third team victory in a row! The girls’ team ended the day in third place, just 4 points out of second place Duluth East. The Brainerd girls won first place.
The next race for the Alpine Vikes is the Section 7 meet and will have already happened by press time.
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