Alberta’s top mogul skiers, including several alumni of the Jasper Freeride club, spent six days training at Marmot Basin last week as they prepared for this season’s competitive tour.

It’s actually unusual for the Alberta Mogul Team to train in Alberta, according to head coach Elisa Kurylowicz. The skiers would like to do more training in their home province, she said, but accessing the proper resources can be a challenge.

“We’re always looking for the best places to train moguls, and it’s not easy to find good moguls courses,” she said.

Marmot Basin and the Jasper Freeride club “really stepped up” with the moguls course they maintain at the resort, she added.

“It takes a lot of time to maintain a course like that,” Kurylowicz said. “It takes a lot of people to keep that course looking the way it does.”

The provincial team picked Marmot Basin and Castle Mountain as the two best locations within Alberta to train. But the bulk of their on-snow training is still done at Whistler while other “non-skiing” training, such as trampoline work, is done in Calgary.

Kurylowicz said the Jasper Freeride club really made a push to bring the provincial team to Marmot and when she saw the kind of course the club maintains there, she was happy to oblige.

“Some of the parents in the club really liked the idea of us coming,” she said. “And Nic Bazin, the coach of Jasper Freeride, was really asking that we come because he wants the exposure ... for those younger kids to see what the next step is, what the next level looks like.”

Cam Jenkins, past-president of the Jasper Freeride club, said the current members were able to spend some time on the course with the provincial team, get some pointers, and see where they could go if they take their skiing to the next level.

It was also a chance to catch up with some old friends, Jenkins added, as three of the current provincial team members – Troy Minogue, Addison Eady, and Emilie Brown – are former Freeride members.

“Troy Minogue is the top Jasper club guy,” Kurylowicz said. “He’s from Edmonton and he’s ranked second on the team at the moment. This is his third year on the team.”

This season marks the second year on the Alberta team for Eady, who is a Jasper resident, and the first year for Brown.

Kurylowicz said the top members of the Alberta team will compete on the NorAm tour which begins in early February in Telluride, Colo. The younger members will compete on a smaller circuit within Canada.

“What the Alberta team guys are reaching for is the national development team,” she said, which they can qualify for based on their results on the NorAm tour.

Minogue also qualified to be a “forerunner” at the World Cup moguls event in Calgary Jan. 28-29, meaning he gets to ride the course ahead of the top-level field as a warm-up for the judges.

“It’s a really good developmental opportunity ... for him to ski with World Cup level athletes,” Kurylowicz said.

Meanwhile, the Jasper Freeride club is hosting a major competition of its own this weekend at Marmot Basin.

Jenkins said 145 skiers from every freestyle club in the province are coming to compete in moguls and slopestyle events on Saturday and Sunday.

“This is a huge event,” he said. “We’re literally going to be running two events simultaneously.”

Younger skiers will compete on a slopestyle course in the mini-rail park at mid-mountain on Saturday while older athletes take on the moguls course. Then on Sunday the younger competitors will run a modified moguls course while the older athletes compete in slopestyle in the main terrain park.

“These are free events and we certainly encourage the public to come out and watch,” Jenkins said.

The events will run from about 10:15 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.