Apex K Slalom Race Good for Baldy Racers

It was a competitive line-up for the time-trail slalom race at Apex on Sunday. A new format "coaches" race utilized two Brower wireless timers (one belonging to Baldy Racers). K1s and 2s ran simultaneously on two separate courses which allowed racers to get in four timed runs (2 AM and 2 PM). Results were tabulated using the best morning and best afternoon run.
Our two newest 10 year old K racers Agatka Koczij and Daniel Everton placed 23rd in girls and 24th in the boys category. With over 30 racers in each category, our rookie racers faired very well in the big leagues. The big result of the day went to Nils Rauhala who pulled off a rocket of a second run to put him in 8th overall. Not far behind was Nicholas Everton in10th and Ben Myers in 16th. All in all a good day for the Baldy Crew.
Results in pdf format are on the Big White Racers sight click link for k1 boys or k1 girls

Please send pictures if you have them so I can post here.

Training for Apex K Slalom

Third training session at Apex today. The K kids are really improving already. We're totally concentrating on slalom due to the upcoming K slalom at Apex next weekend. Baldyracers are positioned to do well. The snow is nice and hard. Perfect for racing.

Agatka

Nicholas

Officials Course in Oliver Tonight

Just a reminder that we have our Level 1 Officials Course taking place tonight at the Oliver Parks and Recreation Meeting Room #1 from 7pm to 10pm. It looks like we'll have at least 14 people attending which will give us a good base of knowledge to run our South Zone RTANG race on February 5th. Looking forward to seeing everyone there.

Ski Club Registration

It's that time again... Registration! The season is fast approaching and we'd like to get the forms filled out as soon as possible so we can start processing payments. I'm hoping to get a sense of who's returning and who might want to sign up. Pass the form on to anyone you think might want to give it a try this year.
Fees are being reduced to $200 for Nancy Greene this year. The GM sponsorship has ended and there will be no raffle this year, so that meens a reduction of the $50 for the ticket books. Make cheques out to Mt Baldy Alpine Club, 2128 Sandstone Drive, Pencton V2A 8Y7.

Nancy Greene Schedule: Starting date - January 8th, 2012 for ten Sundays 9:30am-12:30pm

Cost Schedule:
Nancy Greene (E1, E2)  $200
K1-K2 Level                  $1,100
K1 Development            $400

Link to the ACA Registration and Waiver (1st item in the list - fillable form to print and send)
BC Alpine Registration Forms List

Zone Meeting November 2nd

Just a brief update of the zone meeting that took place Wednesday night in Vernon. The season schedule was discussed as well as format for zone races, qualifications for BC Winter Games and Whistler Cup.

Points to note:

• Mt Baldy will hold the South Zone "Cup Cake" race on February 5th, 2012. The format is up to our club but the focus has been on slalom the past few years. Last year's race at Crystal was a stubby slalom but everyone agreed that Baldy's glalom format was challenging, fun and suitable for the terrain. Zone finals are at Big White on March 3rd-4th and the Sun Peaks Festival is March 23-24th
• We're trying to line up a level one technical training course for gatekeeping and officiating. Stay tuned for some dates. We'll need as many parents out as possible
• K1 dates (all) for races and camps: We'll have to decide what we're going to.
• December 18th Slalom time trial (5 timed runs) - Apex
• January 14-15th GS - Sun Peaks
• February 3-5th Speed Camp - Silver Star
• February 23-26th BC Winter Games (6 boy/6girls and 1 wildcard from our zone)
• SL, GS and SkiX (replaces kombi - time trial format i.e. one skier at a time)
• March 17-19th K1 Provincials - Big White
• SL, GS and SkiX (time trial format)
• March 31-Apr 1st Zone Finals, Slalom & Dual SL - Revelostoke
• Apr 6-8th - Whistler Cup - rule change - each club has a quota of 3/3. No provincial qualifying
• BC Alpine has a new Entry Level Coordinator - Justine Parent. She was present at the meeting and will be coming around to most hills to deliver the EL Academy to coaches. Our date is January 8th which is our first day of training for NG. Should be interesting for coaches. Justine will be following us around and we'll need to have a training plan to show her
• FIS age grouping changes coming into effect in 2013 (age as of Dec 31st of season start)
• U10 - what was E1 4-9 year olds
• U12 - what was E2 -  now up to & incl 11 year olds
• U14 - what was K1 - now up to & incl 13 yr olds
• U16 - what was K2 - now up to & incl 15 yr olds

Ponderosa Work Party Sunday

Baldy Racer families are getting ready to work on our next training run project on the mountain this Sunday October 9th. In order to have some quality giant slalom training we need to clear out a section of Ponderosa. It's anticipated that we could use the lower 75% of the run for GS and continue to use Tennings for slalom. This would potentially give us 30 plus gates with 20-24 metre spacing for GS.
Meeting time is 9 am at the lodge. Mt Baldy is having a general work party as well so we should try to have our own tools including, brush, chain and hand saws. Bring work gloves, good boots, water and snacks.

Mt Baldy Racers AGM

Mt Baldy Alpine Club is holding its Annual General Meeting on May 25th, 2011 at the Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen Board Room, 101 Martin Street, Penticton. Start time of the meeting is 7:30 pm and is scheduled to go no later than 9 pm.
Agenda:

1. Application for Gaming Grant
2. 2011-2012 Plans
• Coaching
• Technical Course
• NG South Zone Race
• Summer Camp Funding
3. 2011 Financial Statements
4. 2012 Budget
5. FIS Rules - K age groups

Zone Finals at Big White

The Baldy Team came prepared to race hard on the final weekend of the Kinder season at Big White. The Team had some success and a little trouble on Saturday but the potential for some high placed finishes was there. It was a two run combined tall gate slalom course that really tested the team. Most racers pulled off one good run but it was Nicholas who was able to pull two good runs together and capture 7th place in the K1 men's division. Ben also finished both runs with a crash on his second run and ended up 17th. Ella, Jess and Nat  DQ'd/DNF'd on the first run and their second runs indicated top ten placings for all three and possibly a top five for Jess. Nils came out hard on his first run in the E2 category and was headed for a top five before straddling a gate on the second run.

Sunday was great fun in the dual slalom format. It was a head to head elimination race that pitted the high seeds against the lowers seeds for the most part. Our K1s only survived two rounds of racing but competed like I've never seen them race before. They really pushed their limits to stay with the higher ranked athletes. The bright spot on Sunday was Nils in the E2 rounds. He made short work of his competition in the early rounds and got passed some tough competitors in the later rounds to finish third overall.

Congratulations to our racers for an all around great season!

Baldy Racers Wind-up Lunch

We had a great dual slalom against the parents, siblings and old rivals on Sunday. The Nancy Greene portion of the season was wound-up with great progress from all our young skiers. Individual most improved awards were given out to our season standouts. The Mountain provided a great lunch to our 25 racers and Manager Matt was on hand to see his kids finish their season and daughter Molly get the green award. In the other award categories the Blue award went to Yolanda, Black award went to Anya and K award to Nicholas. Thanks to all the parents, coaches and staff for a great season and to the racers for making it all worthwhile.
Check out the huge collection of pictures at the Picassa site. Click on any thumbnail at the top of the page to access it.

A Great Zone Final in Revelstoke

The zone finals were a great success at Revelstoke Mountain Resort this past weekend. The Revelstoke Ski club put a lot of time and effort into the race and the results showed. It was very well run and our Baldy Team had great results.

On Saturday the E1s were the focus and Baldy fielded three athletes. Avery Kane was our top racer with a ninth place finish. On Sunday the E2s ran a fine race with many top 10 and top 5 finishes. There were two one-run races on a technical 'kombi" course. In the 9 year old girls category Agatka Koczij was on the podium in 2nd for the first race and 3rd in the second race with Caprice Brown placing 9th in the first race. In the 9 year old boys category Daniel Everton grabbed 4th spot in the first and 5th in the second. Anya Nazaroff took 5th, then 4th in her two races in the 10 year old girls category. In the 10 year boys category we had Nils Rauhala in 6th and 10th and then had Jack Fenwick-Wilson pulling off two 6ths in the 11 year old boys category.

Congratulations to all the racers. It was a great showing for our small club amongst the giants of the Okanagan!

Fund Raising Success at the Spaghetti Dinner

We had a great turnout at our 2nd annual spaghetti dinner fund raiser. The Baldy Bar was packed with patrons who appreciated the great work of our parent and racer volunteers. No table was left unserved. The kids were very thorough with their serving duties and the supporters opened their wallets to the auction items. Thanks to all the Baldy Racer supporters and volunteers.

Spaghetti Dinner Fundraiser Saturday February 26th

The excitement builds for Mt Baldy Alpine Club's 2nd annual silent auction fundraiser. We hope to see everyone out from last year and hopefully some new faces. Auction sponsors include: Osoyoos Watermark Resort, Pizza Factory, Nk'Mip Golf Course, OK Tire, Silver Sage Winery, Sunshine Health Centre, Bumwrap, The Bike Barn, Apex Ski Shop, Baldy Bobcat, Freeride Board Shop, Pentagon Board Shop, Fresh Air Experience, Bylands, Nature's Fare and Little Straw Winery among others.
A Baldy Racers video/image presentation has been assembled for the occasion and can be previewed at the following link... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKx1cxwzd1I

Fundraiser Details:
Saturday, February 26th at 6:00 pm
Baldy Bar
Dinner includes salad, entree, and dessert.
Adults $17
Kids 12 & U $10

A Glimpse Into The Future

While we were low on coaches due to illness and injury, we weren't low on racing talent. This weekend Baldy's own Silken Rauhala was on home turf training with the Ks and Nancy Greene racers. Silken grew up in our Nancy Greene program before moving on to K with Apex and into FIS with Big White. We had some challenging slalom courses set up that not only tested our young racers but gave Silken a good round of training before heading off to the Canada Winter Games in Halifax. It was great for our rising stars to see how far they could reach in a few years. So far this year Silken has trained in Germany and Panorama. She's raced slalom and GS at Lake Louise and Nakiska and she recently raced super G and downhill at Apex. Her coach Derek from Big White was kind enough to give her the weekend off to train with us. The attached link is to her FIS race history http://www.fis-ski.com/uk/604/613.html?sector=AL&listid=&competitorid=163884&type=result

Crystal Mtn Hardware Haul!

The cold weather of Crystal Mountain did not hold back the Baldy Nancy Greene Team at the South Zone race today. Congratulations on all the great results. We had gold medals from Anya (F2000) and Daniel (M2001). Nils and Jack pulled off a silver each in the (M2000) and (M1999). In the E1 category, Baldy's "Blue" team placed third and included Adam, Avery, Yoland and Nicole. Many photos have been uploaded to google pics. Click on the thumbnails at the top of the page.

Baldy Training on the Weekend

It was a good weekend of trainng at Baldy. The E1s and E2s have a race coming up on January 31st and we're ripping up the K-level slalom course in fine fashion. The Ks split their time between GS on Saturday and Slalom on Sunday and are getting used to switching back and forth. The picture below is of Nils giving it everything in the GS course. Impressive!

We've been hoping for good support from the Es for the race at Crystal this coming weekend. This is their first attempt at holding a race and they deserve good representation from Baldy. Every year that we've hosting races the Crystal team has been coming. On that note there is also an optional race in the Kootenay Zone at Phoenix Mountain on February 13th. We've always had a good relationship with Phoenix over the years with the Baldy Cup races. We need to know ASAP who's attending the race this weekend an indication for the Phoenix race in February.
Also if anyone takes pictures at the Crystal race or training for that matter, please forward them on to Coach Warren for use in the blog

Sun Peaks K Giant Slalom

The K group had a great race weekend at Sun Peaks. There were two one-run GS races on Saturday and one two-run GS on Sunday. Not only were there Okanagan teams racing but there were teams from Prince George and Yukon making for stiff competition. Saturday in the first race we saw Jessica in 18th and Ella finishing 32nd after crashing. For the boys, Nicholas was 14th, Nathaniel 15th with Ben in 17th. In the afternoon we managed to get the second race in despite some lengthy delays. In this race Jessica was 20th, Ella was 21st, Nathaniel improved to 14th place, Nicholas was16th and Ben 19th.
On the second day we saw conditions drastically soften and the fog move in. Visibility was good enough to pull the race off but the times slowed considerably. Results were very good for Ella and Nathaniel who finished 12th and 11th. Both Jessica and Nicholas had chances to pull off top tens after the first run. Jess was in 10th and Nicholas 9th before Jess DNF'd on the second run and Nicholas fell back to 12th overall. Still very exciting performances by both racers. Ben pulled off a very respectable 17th and was the most consistent skier of the weekend.

K Racers at Sun Peaks E Racers Training at home

The Baldy K Racers are off to Sun Peaks for the 2nd race of the Okanagan Series. Ella, Jessica, Nicholas, Nathaniel and Ben have been training hard and are looking forward to a good fast race. The format is GS with two one run races on Saturday the 15th and a two run race on Sunday. The E1s and E2s are training at home with Coach Gary on Sunday. They're gearing up for the first race of the Nancy Greene Series taking place at Crystal Mountain in West Kelowna on January 30th.