High school skiers balance life, money, sport

MAT-SU – No matter the weather conditions, the classwork, or the other extracurricular activities they pile on their plates, high school skiers may manage their time – and money – better than other student athletes.

But it’s not just time management skills that skiers bring to the table. They’re also pretty good at improvising and including others in their unique sport.

Colony sophomore Carmen Soto, Palmer freshman Jeremy Houston and Wasilla senior Logan Seims spoke to all the above in individual phone interviews this week, each coming to the sport in slightly different ways.

“I’ve always been (skiing) with my dad (since) I was little, but I really started competitively last year,” Soto said.

Seims had a similar background.

“I’ve pretty much grown up skiing with like three-pin, (wooden) skis, but I was just messing around in my backyard, I didn’t know any actual technique,” he said.

His athletic career could have taken a very different course, however. After a “pretty good” run of performances as a wrestler in middle school, Seims assumed he would continue to perform well at the next level.

But the transition to high school wrestling was much harder – unnecessarily so, he said – than he expected. There seemed to be increased risk of injury, and Seims felt more pressure to cut weight than he thought was good for his health.

He put it in terms of eating:

“I like to eat, and I like to work off what I eat, not not eat and work off what I didn’t eat,” Seims said. “Did that make sense?”

Well, it definitely would to Soto.

“Skiers can eat a lot of calories,” she said. “I come home and I eat more than anyone else in my family, and I love it and I still stay in shape.”

She’s not wrong. According to a table posted in a “healthy living” article by Mayo Clinic staff on their website, a 160-pound person burns about 500 calories per hour of cross-country skiing, and that’s at a fairly slow pace. Given that high school skiers spend about two hours practicing daily, it’s safe to say that they’re burning at least 1,000 calories a day (and that doesn’t account for any calories burned while kick waxing skis outside or standing around while putting skis in the car or waiting for a ride, as skiers usually do).

Though Houston didn’t mention anything about eating, he too, like Seims, came to skiing from another sport, and with less experience.

“I (skied) a little bit when I was very young but not real skiing, just like, shuffling on skis,” Houston said.

His parents still ski, and as Houston entered high school this fall, he thought the sport might be a good way to keep his fitness up in preparation for the spring soccer season.

“I do soccer pretty regularly, so I was going to (ski) to get in shape for soccer, at first,” he said. “Then I thought ‘oh, I might actually be good at this,’ and started really training for races.”

But he took a significant risk before the season even began. With a big chunk of his money earned while refereeing summer soccer games, Houston went out and bought more than $800 worth of skis, poles and boots at Backcountry Bike and Ski in Palmer, which while expensive is actually in the price range for competitive skiing.

That may seem like a lot for a high school sport – especially with the $150 activity fee collected by the school and the typical $20 waxing fee collected by the coaches – but it’s definitely in the price range for beginning skiers.

To race at the high school level, each skier must have a pair of skate skis, a pair of classic skis, a pair of skate poles, a pair of classic poles, and at least one pair of boots. Each pair of skis usually costs somewhere between $150 and $250, but can cost more than $600. Poles could be anywhere from $50 to $150 per pair, and boots cheaper than $150 brand new are a rare if not impossible find.

“You could spend $5,000 on good skis and good equipment,” Logan Seims, a Wasilla High School senior and competitive skier said.

While that’s true, there are several options for new skiers on a budget.

Alaska Mountaineering and Hiking in Anchorage, for example, hosts a team night for any high school ski team that asks, during which all nordic skiing items are discounted, usually between 10 and 20 percent. There are also many ski swaps held locally and in Anchorage during the fall at which skis, boots and poles can be purchased, well-used ones for as little as $20.

The Mat-Su Ski Club also offers two $500 equipment scholarships each season for which students can apply. Seims went the swap route.

“My skate skis are pretty good. I got a good deal, but (I don’t have) great classic skis,” he said. “I just kinda make it work.”

To be honest, that’s what a lot of skiers do, and it helps to have skiers in the family. Seims’ older brother also skied for Wasilla (as does his younger brother Jes), so he had some hand-me-down help there. Carmen Soto, a sophomore skier at Colony High School, is tall enough to use all her dad’s old gear.

“I’m using my dad’s 20-year old skis and his 20-year old poles, his 10-year-old boots,” she said. “Anything laying around the house that was my size.”

There’s no getting around the need for all that gear, either. Skate skis are shorter than classic skis and designed to glide in a V shape. Classic skis are used in parallel tracks and require kick or grip wax to assist in “kicking” uphill, which is applied to the base of each ski in the middle and is not something a skier wants to scrape off their skate skis every time they switch techniques.

Since the poling motion is different for each technique, skate poles are also longer than classic poles, and would be awkward to use with classic skis.

Finally, combination or “combi” boots can be used for both techniques, but usually a plastic cuff has to be removed for classic skiing, as that technique requires more movement at the ankle. The removal can be difficult or inconvenient when trying to make quick switches – especially with cold fingers – which is one of the reasons why most skiers prefer to buy two specialized pairs if possible.

Keeping up with one’s classes can also be a challenge for high school skiers – not only because it takes time to get the skis ready and drive to and from a practice venue that has ski-able snow, but because they also have other commitments in addition to their sport.

Soto, for example, has Venture Crew meetings every Tuesday evening and jazz band practices year-round from 6:40 to 7:30 in the morning, before school. Seims has regular band and pep band practices and concerts, participates in Boy Scouts year-round, and is an active member of his church. Houston has soccer to think about, and will soon have less time to think about his honors English and science classes when he joins the Alaska Nordic Racing program to train in the summer on rollerskis, another investment.

Although these three skiers might be called “middle-of-the-pack” athletes right now, each with different goals, two things remain the same for all of them: their attitude toward skiing as a lifelong sport, and their view of their team – however large or small – as a family.

“Twenty years from now, I’m not gonna be wrestling,” Seims said, to the first point. “I’ll probably have XC skis and probably get (them) out sometimes. (There’s) more of a lasting knowledge, (it’s) a lasting hobby.”

On the second point, Houston spoke directly.

“We are basically a big family,” he said. “We all look out for each other and are very connected.”

Cross-country skiing is also one of those unique sports, Seims said, that draws students who may not have thought they could compete in something athletic.

“It really doesn’t matter who you are,” Seims said. “You don’t have to be a straight-A student or, you don’t have to be super coordinated. Whoever you are you can pick skiing up and work on your technique always.”

Finally, opportunities to just be in and appreciate nature abound, Soto said, thanks especially to Hatcher Pass.

“There’s some days I’m up there and I kinda go, ‘what am I doing?’ (Skiing is) cold, and hard but the mountain up there is really, really pretty,” she said. “I think that’s pretty worth it. Not everyone gets to climb to the top of a mountain and see everything (like that).”

Contact Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.

*Note: Skvorc cross-country skied for Colony High School and Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota.