What it Takes… Thank You to Our Community

By Will Brandenburg, SVSEF Alpine Program Director and 2023 U.S. Alpine National Championships Chief of Race.

Sunday, April 2, will be a day I will never forget. I got to the mountain a little before 5 a.m. Riley Berman (Chief of Course for the event) was driving on Warm Springs Road just behind me. The weeks leading up to this morning had been brutal on the entire crew as mother winter extended her stay this year. After watering the venue top to bottom, the grooming team had no choice but to blade off the new snow to maintain the race surface needed for an event of this magnitude. This takes extensive hours of cat work, and the grooming team had been at it relentlessly for weeks. Because of this, we had to keep most of the B-net off the hill. The snow that came in on Saturday gave us no choice but to set up the majority of the protection on a world-class Super G course the morning of the event, meaning a super early load Sunday morning.

I drank a cup of coffee and walked over to the yurt to meet Riley and the crew. I was expecting to see the normal crew there, but when I opened the door, it was standing room only. It was 6 a.m. and nearly 100 people had shown up to help. School teachers, doctors, chiropractors, restaurant owners, bankers, trainers, and so many community members were there to show their support and help pull off the event. Then it was Riley’s time to shine. On the big screen in the yurt, Riley had it all mapped out. He had nearly every name in the room organized with a specific job to do.