The Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association (EISA) is known for its Carnival circuit: the six-weekend race series features the same schools and athletes week after week (after week after week after week after week). It’s an historic part of ski racing in the U.S., and no school is as embedded in the Carnival scene (or American ski racing) as Dartmouth College.
More than a century ago, Dartmouth created the Winter Carnival. They put together their first collegiate ski team in 1909 (under the auspices of the Dartmouth Outing Club), and they were one of two teams in the first collegiate ski race ever, against McGill University in 1914.
And so it makes sense that they’re one of the only colleges with their own ski mountain, the Dartmouth Skiway.
The Skiway is what you’d expect from an historic New England ski program: quaint and unassuming. A small timber-framed lodge nestled in a valley, surrounded by a handful of ski trails. When it was built in the late 1950s, Dartmouth already had a place to ski nearby at Oak Hill. But, they wanted to size up a bit during an era when many mountains across the U.S. were being developed by the burgeoning ski industry.
It’s not hard to see why the College chose this location. As you tool through the Upper Valley town of Lyme and its surrounding farmland, you round a bend and out of nowhere: what we now know as Holt’s Ledge and Winslow’s Ledge. Two peaks belted by cliffs, land pristine enough that today it’s home to peregrine falcons and cut-through by the Appalachian Trail.
Holt’s Ledge is the site of Worden’s, the Giant Slalom (GS) trail known in the EISA for its waterfall drop and (seemingly) never-ending flats before a quick duck down to the finish by the Turnpike road.
Those flats can be deceiving. As University of Vermont (UVM) Assistant Coach Tim Kelley (a capable racer on the EISA circuit during his racing days) noted, “It’s not as flat as it looks. It has terrain…It’s not one of those flat courses where you can go to sleep and tuck straight.”
Judging by today’s results, this is something the Dartmouth squad knows well.
The Dartmouth men’s team won the GS race with a score of 136 points. Middlebury College took second with 100, their fine performance capped by a podium finish from senior captain Riley Plant. UVM was narrowly bumped to third; the Catamounts finished with 99 points.
Dartmouth was led by overall race winner Tanguy Nef, who continued his dominance of the EISA circuit. He took the home win with a combined time of 2:01.16, storming down Worden’s to win the second run and the race. Teammates Brian McLaughlin (2:01.72) and David Domonoske (2:02.34) came through in second and fifth, respectively, finishing within a half-second of each other.
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| Second place finisher Brian McLaughlin (DAR) |
Dartmouth Men’s Head Coach Peter Dodge was ecstatic with the top finishes by his front-runners, and was also pleased by the depth and consistency of his team. All six of his skiers made it down the trail and across the finish line, taking places 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, and 11.
“I was really pleased,” Dodge said. “Especially because home carnival can sometimes be a mixed blessing, a lot of pressure. Obviously, Nef and McLaughlin 1-2 is awesome, but having [Kalle] Wagner, [David] Domonoske, James Ferry - those guys - come up and put in a super performance…Yeah, real psyched with the depth and performance of all the guys.”
Middlebury College's Assistant Coach, Abby Copeland, was similarly excited by her team’s performance, especially that of Plant (2:02.17).
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| Third place finisher Riley Plant (MID) |
“I’m super happy for Riley,” Copeland said. “He’s been skiing well all year, and it just hasn’t connected on race day yet. It just proves that he can be one of the fastest guys out there. His positivity has really been awesome in leading this team. He’s just got a great attitude. I’m really psyched for him.”
While the Dartmouth men’s team dominated their home hill, the women’s squad fell just short. UVM took the win with a score of 128. The Dartmouth women were two points back with 126. Middlebury came in third with 97 points.
Despite Dartmouth’s narrow loss, there was one particularly bright spot for the Big Green: Foreste Peterson won her senior-year home carnival with a time of 2:05.76, beating UVM’s Paula Moltzan (2:06.11). Third place was taken by another Catamount, Josefine Selvaag, in a time of 2:06.34. Rounding out the scoring for UVM was first-year Francesca English in sixth place with a time of 2:06.75.
University of Vermont Assistant Coach Tim Kelley said that, despite the back-and-forth rivalry between UVM and Dartmouth, the Catamounts prepared for this race just as they would for any other: “Same as always,” Kelley said. “Just come in and try to attack and ski fast.”
Tomorrow should be another good match as we head across the street to race slalom on the Winslow Ledge's Thomas Trail. It's a bit of a gentler slope, and Dartmouth has been working hard to get the surface ready for the race.
"We did a ton of work on it," Dodge said. "It should be pretty much like the GS hill. It’s a little flatter, so it’s a little harder to move the soft stuff off. It might be a little rutty. You know, like an inch and half, two inches’ rut. But hard underneath.”