The cities of Portland and Hood River were pretty much shut down, and roads up to Mount Hood were a sheet of ice with fallen trees and abandoned cars, but that didn’t stop a hard-core group of kid racers and their families and coaches from staging a slalom race in the sleet and rain at Skibowl Sunday.

The race down Mt. Hood Lane was meant to be part of the Oregon 4-Way, an annual competition that tests junior athletes in alpine slalom and GS, Nordic racing and ski jumping. But the lack of snow forced the club that organizes the event, the Mount Hood Race Team, to drop the Nordic events.

The slalom was scheduled for Skibowl, moved to Timberline due to lack of snow, and then moved back to Skibowl after a major snowstorm last week allowed Skibowl to open new terrain. But then the snow turned to ice Saturday night, making the roads in town treacherous enough that the PACRAT race and all buses from Metro Portland to Mt. Hood Meadows were canceled.

The hazardous roads were too much for some families, but 130 or so kids did get a chance to race down a tight slalom course that developed some tricky ruts as the snow turned to slush. About a third of the racers crashed, did not finish or were disqualified for missing a gate.

It was a good race for the host club, with Mount Hood Race Team racers Luke Musgrave, Zach Simmons and Colt Musgrave posting the three fastest times for the boys. Here are the top three finishers by age division:

Girls Under 10

1. Sequoyah Walther-Gingold, Mount Bachelor, 1:02.47
2. Maya Glumbik, Mount Hood Race Team
3. Reece Walther-Porino, Mount Bachelor, 2:11.26

Boys Under 10

1. Levi Brown, MHRT, 1:59.83
2. Colin Hanna, MHRT, 2:11.88
3. Markus Falconer, Meadows Race Team, 2:21.67

Girls Under 12

1. Kiera Bertell, Multnomah Athletic Club, 1:44.67
2. Savina Dock, Meadows Race Team, 1:52.94
3. Tori Hopkins, Cooper Spur Race Team, 1:53.79

Boys Under 12

1. Colt Musgrave, MHRT. 1:39.22
2. Zak Clairmont, MHRT, 1:42.56
3. Carson Paskill, MAC, 1:54.51

Girls Under 14

1. Addie Beasley, Mount Bachelor, 1:40.66
2. Clara Macedo, Cascade Winter Sports Club, 1:51.44
3. Aiden Willett, Meadows Race Team, 1:53.31

Boys Under 14

1. Luke Musgrave, MHRT, 1:33.10
2. Zach Simmons, MHRT, 1:38.11
3. Seth Bernhardt, Meadows Race Team, 1:42.48

You can find the full results here.

Below is a photo of U10 girls winner Sequoyah Walther-Gingold taken by Mike Juliana. Mike has a huge database of kid racer photos available for sale that parents and family can peruse at mikejulianaphotography.com.

Last modified: February 13, 2014