XC Skiing

Dear Skier and Parent/Guardian:

Thank you for your interest in cross-country skiing at Randy Smith Middle School.

Typically, Cross-country Ski Club meets Tuesdays after school until 4:30 pm.  On Thursdays, we ride the bus to Birch Hill and practice until 5:00 pm. The bus does not return the students to school.  You will need to pick your child up.

The middle school ski club does not compete against other schools. We are a developmental team and our goal will be on developing our skill as skiers and to have fun, get good exercise and be with other positive-minded skiers. We encourage skiers to find some competitions during the winter ski season in Fairbanks. Fairbanks is a great ski town with many chances to participate in ski events that fit your schedule, your ski distance or you’re racing style whether it is casual or competitive.

Our emphasis will be on skate skiing, but classic skiing is a perfect way to begin and we will work with anyone who wants to start with classic. We encourage skiers to learn how to wax and maintain their equipment and will try to help skiers with this skill when time allows. If a skier does not have equipment we may have some equipment to borrow from the ski room. We will spend some time at the beginning of the season getting our equipment together and making sure that we are ready to hit the slopes.

Being part of the ski team is a privilege. We do not cut due to ability level but we do expect skiers to participate consistently and to their fullest ability. However, poor grades, lack of participation and attitude problems can cause a student to be dropped from the team. Please talk to me in advance if you have a scheduling conflict or anticipate some absences.

If the temperature at Birch Hill drops to below -5 we will cancel practice. The decision to cancel or not will be made by 12:00 on the day of practice. Remember that Birch Hill is usually much warmer than the weather in town so it is important to look on the website for Birch Hill to gauge weather conditions. Please do not call the school unless you cannot find the information on the website. The website iswww.nscfairbanks.org.

Ski team start date is TBD. If you are interested in helping the team or you want to ski with us or even just bring a snack (water only, and healthy snack) to Birch Hill please do. I will only do this if we have all the parents on board to help make this happen. If there is enough interest then we will set up a sign-up sheet. We encourage you to join us.

If you have any questions, we can be reached at:

Coach Andrea Chin
(907) 458-7600
olga.napolilli@k12northstar.org