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Colorado Mountain College Alpine Ski Team

Steamboat Springs — Jaymes Elkins toyed around with the NASTAR gates every time his local ski club made a trip up to the Pocono Mountains from his native Hightstown, N.J. But he never really took ski racing all that seriously. Certainly not seriously enough to think he'd some day wind up on a collegiate Alpine ski racing team with a shot at a national title.

But after learning the racing basics at Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vt., Elkins transferred to Steamboat Springs' Colorado Mountain College Alpine Campus when he found out that CMC - located in the town he had made ski trips to since age 5 - had a ski team.

Now Elkins, 20, is the lone member returning from the CMC men's team, which last year qualified for the U.S. Collegiate Ski & Snowboard Association National Championships.

Still, he feels like the team is overlooked in a town filled with elite ski and snowboard competitors.

"We were all freeskiing (Thursday) and we had our uniforms on to do a picture and these ski patrollers were like, 'CMC has a ski team?'" Elkins said. "So we just kind of joked back, 'uh, yeah, we've got uniforms and everything,' but this year it feels like we have more support."

Coach George Thomas has had four of his past six men's teams qualify for the USCSA nationals. But entering his seventh year at the helm of the program, Thomas feels like he's got something special.

"For the first time, I've got six guys that top to bottom are solid, really good skiers. This is the year of depth," Thomas said.

In the pipeline

Atop that list are Blake Barnes of Eden Prairie, Minn., and Shoko Tanaka of Nozawa Onsen, Japan, two skiers that could potentially use the USCSA competitive platform to launch themselves onto an NCAA Division I roster.

"Their (FIS) points are a little lower and they are both pretty focused on ski racing," Thomas said of Barnes and Tanaka. "Shoko stayed out here over the holidays and so did Blake, for all but two days, up here training every day."

But the pair was absent at Thursday afternoon's slalom practice at Howelsen Hill. They were already on the road for a NCAA-series, Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association race hosted by the University of Utah (in which FIS-licensed USCSA athletes can compete).

The remainder of the Alpine team includes Kara Norby of Portage, Wis.; Sara Yngve of Kristinehamn, Sweden; Elkins; Jacob Chiaverotti of Mukwonago, Wis.; Christian Herzog of Lincoln, N.H.; and Will Roske of Spring Green, Wis. The team kicks of its USCSA season Saturday with a two-day giant slalom event in Telluride. CMC's Alpine ski team competes independently from its Nordic ski team, which is based at the school's Timberline Campus in Leadville.

After the steep Telluride course, it's three more consecutive weekends of racing against the nine-school Rocky Mountain Conference, followed by the Western Regional Championships, Feb. 20 to 23 in McCall, Idaho. Only the best five teams from the top 19 teams qualified from the Western Region's three conferences then advance to the big show - the 2008 USCSA National Championships, March 4 to 8 in Sunday River, Maine.

For Yngve and Norby, who is returning after a season-ending ACL injury last January, the odds are tough. Fielding only two skiers makes it nearly impossible for the women to qualify as a team, which factors three skiers' scores. But Thomas is pleased with the progress Yngve is making and feels confident in Norby's talent and ability to earn the Western Region's one female individual qualifier spot to nationals.

On the men's side, Thomas finally has the depth to look ahead to regionals and nationals, when he can select the fittest five-man team for the slalom and GS races.

"I'd put this team against any in the West," Thomas said, excited to improve on the school's top team finish - sixth overall, five years ago. "For a two-year college, we get the turnstile of younger kids coming in, so it says a lot to stand against all these four-year schools."

Thomas also wouldn't put it past any of this year's skiers to earn the USCSA golden ticket - a nationals victory that earns the top men's and women's finisher a start at the 2008 U.S. Alpine Championships.

"It's a very small door, but we're in the pipeline," said Thomas, who sees the chance to race USCSA as a tremendous option for all the kids who raced in high school, but didn't end up on the small rosters of a handful of select NCAA Division I programs.

For racers like Chiaverotti, the chance to live in Steamboat and compete on a national-title contending team was a perfect fit. On Thursday morning, he and his teammates put the task of moving back into the CMC dorms on hold for a morning of bottomless powder skiing at the Steamboat Ski Area, followed directly by an afternoon of crashing slalom gates at Howelsen.

"Steamboat's what got me out here - I love to ski and I have a passion for it," Chiaverotti said. "As long as it stays fun, I'll keep doing it."