The snow has hit the ground and that means the season will soon begin for the Jasper Freeride Ski Team.

Club President Cam Jenkins says that the team, with athletes who start as young as six years of age, focuses on developing advanced freestyle skiing skills. Training focuses on technical skills related to mogul, aerial, and freeride skiing, while building focused, confident athletes. 

“We have had kids that have made it all the way to the Alberta Mogul [provincial] team,” says Jenkins. “Of the current nine members, four have come out of Jasper.”

The Jasper Freeride Ski Team will be starting their season on Nov. 27, running through to April 10. Nov. 27 marks the first official day of training.

In the way of summer training, Jenkins says the team had quite a few of its athletes in tumbling and trampoline training, in partnership with the Jasper Gymnastics Club.

“A lot of them have also attended summer water ramp sessions, where they are learning to do inverted manoeuvres and practice all their tricks,” he says. “The younger kids, at about age nine, are already perfecting and learning their 360s, 540s and 720s. Then, the natural progression is to work on back and front flips and from there, the sky’s the limit.”

With all of this pre-season training and the “strongest coaching faculty in Alberta, if not western Canada”, Jenkins says the Jasper Freeride Ski Team boasts the best skiers on the mountain.

“With our skills development program we put a big emphasis on having fun,” he adds. “We have the music pumping while we freeski, ski moguls and practice in the terrain park, all under coaching supervision that teaches our athletes what’s safe skiing and what is not.”

The Jasper Freeride Ski Team started in 1996 and was originally mostly made up of families from Edmonton. Six years ago, four of the 12 families were Jasperites.

“Now, we have close to 70 members with about 70 per cent being Jasper families and 30 per cent spilt between Hinton and Edmonton,” says Jenkins.

The goal of the team is to create really great, life-long skiers, though Jenkins says the team does have a lot of kids who love competing. This year athletes from all age groups will have the chance to compete if they choose.

From March 6 to 18, the Freeride Ski Team will be hosting the 2011 Canada Post Canadian Junior National Freestyle Championships for the first time.

“I have been in town for about 20 years and this will be arguably the largest ski event in Jasper since the ‘95 Canada Winter Games,” says Jenkins, adding that for a lot of the athletes, this will be the biggest event that they will compete at.

The Jasper Freeride Ski Team trains at Marmot Basin and Jenkins says they have been amazing in their support of the club.

“They have dedicated a training line to the club on the Lift Line run, just above the terrain park,” he says. “It is the perfect pitch in a perfect location.”

Jenkins says the team added two new coaches this year, Marc Shymko and Lucas Hansen out of Edmonton. 

“We’re really excited, as these guys are incredible, to add to our already super crew.”

According to their website, www.jasperfreeride.com, 

the club’s coaches provide a high level of expertise. Collectively, the coaches provide a broad range of skills and positive instruction related to freestyle competition and mogul, aerial and freeride skiing.

“This year, our coaches will be participating in new coaching development programs,” says Jenkins. “They just completed a three-day trampoline course, in December they will take a four-day technical moguls course and in January they will take a three-day park and pipe course.”

He says that the club’s programs include entry-level Freestyle Skills for air, moguls, half-pipe and slope-style. The skills have been divided into Green/Blue/Black levels and skiers will receive stickers as they learn, and certificates to mark their progress at the end of the year.

The more advanced skills have been moved into CFSA’s new FREESTYLERZ program that prepares skiers aged eight and up with more advanced acrobatic and skiing skills needed to succeed in freestyle competitions.

“Our programs are affordable and are mostly one day programs, with a selection of two-day programs,” says Jenkins, adding that some athletes have upwards of 54 days of training throughout the season. “The one day programs are a perfect way for young families to try it out.”

Practices run from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on the weekends and there will be a few camps offered over Christmas and spring break.

“The training time varies around each family’s schedule,” says Jenkins. “That’s the great thing about freestyle, we are able to keep things fun and are not too regimented. It is a newer sport and if you show promise, the opportunities are there.”

Jenkins says that children who do take part in the Jasper Freeride Ski Team program are assured to become competent, knowledgeable skiers on any terrain, while enjoying the benefits of an active lifestyle. Two local Freeriders, Brendan Mahler and Addison Eady, are the first athletes from Jasper to make a provincial team since the ‘70s. They recently made the Canada West Provincial Team.