On December 21, the first Friday of Christmas break, the BSM alpine ski team headed to the Wild Mountain Invite at Wild Mountain. The Wild Mountain Invite is an one-day competition at Wild Mountain which is near Taylor Falls, Minnesota about an hour north of BSM. At this year’s event, there were 28 teams. Benilde has qualified for the Wild Mountain Invite four years in a row and hopes to continue that success.

All members from the schools invited can go even if they don’t ski competitively at the invite. The races happen all day and there is also time to ski for fun and hang out in the tents, where parents have food and drinks for the kids. “The Wild Mountain Invite is very fun and even relaxing because you have time to enjoy the invitational whether you’re competing or not because there is a lot of free time unlike regular meets which are much shorter, rushed, and have fewer teams. You can also watch your teammates while you aren’t skiing,” senior captain Lauren Copland said.

Because of where BSM is, the team usually skis at metro area hills and that is why when the team goes to different hills outside of the metro area inspecting can take longer or be different. “Before the race happens, everybody who will race slips the course (inspecting the course 1-2 time before the race starts) to see what it is like, Wild Mountain is unique and I like the mountain because of the variety when it comes to what course can be set and how it can be set,” sophomore skier Davis Fortney said.

Six boys and Six girls all race but in separate runs (boys and girls), each skier gets two runs in which the two times are added together to find the winner. In between each run, the hill is inspected to make sure it is a fair run for all racers. The invitational runs all day. “We usually leave around 6 in the morning and we get back around 5 o’clock at night, it’s a long day but very fun,” Fortney said. The BSM always looks to be invited to the invitational and it is one of the high points of the season.