For the first time in many weeks the Juneau-Douglas High School: Yadaa.at Kalé Nordic Ski team were in their skis together at the end of roughly four hours refining their technique on a slightly barren Eaglecrest course Saturday.
“Tomorrow is a rest day,” JDHS head coach Abby McAllister said. “Unless the snow makes you happy.”
Saturday the snow had made them happy.
The team hiked up to the Black Bear lift and went Nordic into a back valley. They then did repeats from the Hilda Dam Cabin up to the Black Bear lift and back.
A very light snow was falling and a few droplets of rain.
“The reason I do the team is just because it is nice to just get out on days like this,” senior co-captain Ferguson Wheeler said. He has skied with his family for over 10 years so the team is a natural fit for him. “Even this is better than most days we have had this year, which is just to get on snow in daylight. But when you can’t get on snow, I mean to train, you just have to find whatever you can. We do weights and we go for runs and we go snowshoeing. You just have to find other ways to stay fit just to prepare for the next day that you can go out on the snow.”
Wheeler said if he ever gets down, “You can just rely on your teammates to pull you through. That’s why you join the team.”
The team as a whole has had no races this season, outside of practice time trials, as snow conditions around Alaska have tarnished some of the scheduled high school competitions. They will travel to the Lynx Loppett in Anchorage this weekend, hosted by Dimond High School.
A lone exception was Saturday and Sunday with senior co-captain Finnegan Lamb competing in the ConocoPhillips Besh Cup race on Fairbanks’ Jim Whisenhant Ski Trails at Birch Hill Recreation Area. The race was moved from southcentral Alaska’s Matanuska-Susitna region. The Besh Cup is a six-race series held in December, January and February, and helps select the annual Alaska Team for the U.S. Junior National Championships and biennially the Alaska Team to the Arctic Winter Games.
Lamb placed 34th in the open male 15-kilometer Mass Start Classic with a time of 50 minutes 28.5 seconds (19th under-18 males). He placed 18th in the 1,357-meter (1.35km) Open Male Sprint Free with a time of 3:17.85. Lamb also raced in the Dec. 22 Besh Cup 2 Mass Start in Anchorage, placing 57th in 28:37.
Wheeler, Lamb and senior co-captain Corder Janes are among the top male skiers on the team with freshman Landon Adkins unafraid to chase them down if they miss a kick-and-glide or a double pole or drag an inside edge.
“The season has been kind of hard, like, we have probably had the rainiest practice of all my time skiing,” Janes said during a practice break. He has been skiing for four years. “And we have had to get use to a lot of repetition. Montana Creek has been the only thing we have been skiing. The team has always been combined so that has been good. There have not been any super big changes, unlike other sports. But also the coaches, the coaches really make it a lot better. They are very motivating. Abby has some great weights. Ricky brings us snacks. And yeah, we’ve powered through it…Especially with skate skiing you are more locked in then any other sport when you are in the zone with Nordic. You just go and can glide down the hills and power up them, it just feels great.”
Junior co-captain Lua Mangaccat has improved her technique immensely over the past two seasons and is considered one of the team’s best female chances to earn a podium placing. Junior Siena Farr and sophomore Kai Mangaccat have grit as well, and senior Ida Meyer is a naturally talented athlete.
“Nordic skiing is all about efficiency,” coach McAllister said. “And with good technique you find efficiency so I think Lua might surprise herself in these next races. And of course Ida (Meyer) is a strong athlete in general so she is up there as well.”
During Saturday’s practice, the team was reminded by coaches about the various colors of dehydration and encouraged to re-read a team memo sent the day before.
The memo spoke to hydrating with electrolytes and tea and bone broth and other fluids. It noted to get a good rest that night, turning off screens at least 45 minutes before bed so bodies are ready to head into a solid REM cycle. It spoke of fueling, eating a balanced meal full of complex carbohydrates, fats and proteins — to practice what makes them feel best so they know what to put in their stomachs for race days and pre-race days. It said to stretch, do a little yoga, a little foam rolling or a light hot and cold treatment.
JDHS junior co-captain Zoë Lessard was a freshman at JDHS, then switched to TMHS last year.
“I’ve been tossed around a bit,” Lessard said with a laugh. “I know a lot more people now so it feels much more like a community, which was really nice. I think Juneau can do that, there’s a community, so can its schools. I really love this team because we have been together through all of these years and every year is always some weather issue. I mean, Juneau is Juneau. We are always just there and all are either miserable together or hyping each other up or, like, both. We’re just there, we’re a community and I think a really strong one.”
That community was evident as the team encouraged each other as they passed in the hill repeats.
“I think that this year was really unprecedented for all high schoolers, obviously we combined schools so everything just felt weird, but this was always a combined team,” JDHS senior co-captain Bailey Roguska said. “So going into the school year just felt like this team was holding it together. You already knew people and you already had connections. So I feel like having this team felt normal this year and is really awesome. Obviously it has been a really rainy wet season, but just having your teammates around you and, like, no matter what we are doing we are all doing it together even we are skiing in the rain we are all doing the same thing and it is really cool to have that bond.”
As the team prepared to ski down and off Eaglecrest from the Black Bear lift and coach McAllister noted that a happy snow feeling overshadows a day off, L. Mangaccat proclaimed, “I’m definitely going to be getting out even if we don’t have a practice scheduled. It is just really nice to have the snow again…Being on this team is really special because in the winter a lot of the times in Southeast there is no snow, but it is really nice to have a team to all get outside and get together, and still stay motivated even if the weather is really not going our way. It’s just been a little bit rough this year, but it has been nice to have everyone around and also suffering through it.”
Following this weekend’s competition at Anchorage, the team will continue their search for local snow until the Region III Nordic Regional Championships at Kenai Fe. 7-8 and the 2025 ASAA/First National Bank Alaska Nordic Ski State Championships Feb. 20-22 at Government Peak Recreation Area Trails in Palmer, weather permitting.
As noted in a previous article, the 2024-25 JDHS Nordic Ski Team are seniors Janes (Male), Wheeler (M), Lamb (M), Roguska (Female), Meyer (F), Finley Hightower (M); Juniors Miranda Stichert (F), Lessard (F), Farr (F), Grace Gazdig (F), Della Mearig (F), L. Mangaccat (F); Sophomores Raegan Adams (F), Riley Soboleff (F), K. Mangaccat (F), Adele Fanning (F); Freshmen – Finnan Gahl Kelly (M), Gracie Snyder (F), Adkins (M), Caleb Schane (M), Sunna Schane (F), Anderson Murray (M), Sigrid Eller (F), Emmett Hightower (M), Frisco John McGuire (M); Assistant coach is Ricky Worl and volunteer coaches include Hannah Wilson, Merry Ellefson, Tim Blust, Alden Brudie, Julius Adolfsson, Melia Lu Trousil, Jenny Strumfeld and Mike Hekkers.
• Contact Klas Stolpe at klas.stolpe@juneauempire.com.