First, there was too little snow. Then, too much.
For Portland’s Eastside High Schools Ski Team, unpredictable weather and canceled trips kicked off the latest ski season.
“A lot of our skiers are fairly new to racing and so they need some fundamental training in order to figure out the ins and outs of racing,” said Head Coach Randy Hewitt. “And this year we didn’t get any of that fundamental training time.”
Activities planned for December were canceled along with the first race in January. A lack of snow affected the team early on but then heavy snow altered the season too.
“Our second race was canceled. There was enough snow that time, but that was canceled because of the blizzard,” he said. “And so here we find ourselves in the third week of January trying to have our very first race with no training. So it was a bit of a circus.”
Nora Isles raced on Jan. 20, 2024 at Mt. Hood Meadows. The ski team has faced an unusual ski season due to weather.
courtesy of Abby Isles
Nora Isles, a sophomore at Grant High School and a racer on the ski team found herself temporarily stuck on a ski lift due to extreme weather.
“It’s just been kind of topsy turvy,” she said.
In early January, some resorts in Oregon couldn’t open due to lack of snow and others had limited operations because of light snow. And resorts like Mt. Hood Meadows faced additional operational issues earlier this year as well.
“Our lifts are delayed due to freezing rain and de-icing this morning,” the resort stated on its Instagram page in January. “We don’t have power and are running on generators.”
Still, the team is glad that the season is finally underway and racers enjoy the camaraderie that it provides. Racers come from several different high schools in Portland, including Grant, Cleveland and Franklin.
For a Portland-based ski team, some activities were canceled because of the weather. In this photo shared by Liam Palfreyman, ski events have resumed at Mt. Hood Skibowl East on Sunday, Jan. 28, 2024.
courtesy of Liam Palfreyman
“I’ve made a lot more friends than I would have if I didn’t do ski team, like my friends from the different schools too,” said Liam Palfreyman, a sophomore and racer at Grant. “And I’ve truly just become a better skier, skiing with people who are so much better than you, it makes you improve faster. And our coaches are amazing.”
And for the team’s head coach, the ski season is extra special. Hewitt resurrected the team in 2005 with the help of his daughter, Kelsey.
Skiers gather at Mt. Hood Meadows on Jan. 20, 2024. High school skiers from Portland had less time training for races this season because of the weather.
courtesy of Randy Hewitt
“I loved ski racing as a kid and it opened up a lot of doors for me as a kid growing up in a small mountain town in Colorado,” he said. “My wife, my daughter and my son, we all loved skiing and ski racing. And so it was an easy step to decide to start a program where there was none.”
But his love of skiing has evolved over the years. Kelsey died in a skiing accident in 2015. The Kelsey Hewitt Memorial Sportsmanship race is held in her honor as a kickoff to the ski season. While his relationship with skiing has altered, Hewitt always remembers his daughter while practicing the sport.
“I have a bit of scar tissue where something has been lost because it used to be entirely a free spirited activity… On the other hand, myself or my son and my wife and a lot of dear friends, we couldn’t imagine not skiing,” he said. “And so we do and we make the best of it and we smile and we have a good time together and we wear stickers on our helmets and our skis that say, ‘I ski for Kelsey.’”
Head coach Randy Hewitt and student racers Nora Isles and Liam Palfreyman spoke to “Think Out Loud” host Dave Miller about ski season: