Big Alaska Snowboard & Freeski Club

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Thanks for the post-season (05-06) evaluation and feedback from all you riders, skiers and parents. Here’s answers to some of your questions and concerns. Keep sending in your feedback and we’ll update this page.

Why does it cost so much to enter a Big Alaska Snow Series event? Aren’t you all volunteers?

We have to pay for insurance, medals, course equipment, alpine timing, course set-up at Alyeska, race bibs, advertising, office expense, coach travel, lift tickets, etc. We are volunteers and we need more help. Click here to volunteer.

What are some options for fundraising to pay for race costs and travel?

Last year we offered individual sales of Holiday Greens. The year before we had a dinner and silent auction. Some ideas for this year include individual sales of $35 restaurant discount cards with ½ the sales credited towards your race and travel costs and summer carwashes. Send us your ideas.

Why didn’t I have a Big Alaska coach at Nationals?

It costs a lot to send coaches to California for a week! Big Alaska coaches travel costs for Nationals at Northstar were paid by the training program fees. If you were a member of the training program team and qualified for Nationals, you had a coach at your event venue at Nationals.

Why didn’t Big Alaska have group travel and accommodations at Nationals?

Money. Big Alaska doesn’t have the bank account to pay group air and housing deposits up front. Most of you don’t want to make travel arrangements until you know if you’ve qualified for Nationals so it would be great to have some flights and housing set up but that takes (a) a volunteer Nationals coordinator and (b) money for deposits. Click here to volunteer

Why didn’t I qualify for Nationals? I won a race.

Please see the section of the Big Alaska Informational Handbook on Qualifying for Nationals (click here). Calculating the top qualifier in each age group is pretty clear. However, it is complicated after that. Here are some of the complications: (1) “wildcards” are not distributed evenly by USASA amongst age groups and events the USASA has to schedule 20+ different age groups for 5 disciplines in 5 days—they have to combine many age groups together on a single day on a single venue, (2) we can sometimes “reassign” a slot to someone else if the qualifier tells us in a timely manner that they can’t go to Nationals but not always, (3) some competitors are prequalified in an event because of their finish from the previous Nationals—the second place competitor in that age group may be qualified in addition to the prequalifier but only in events they’ve done at the Big Alaska level, (4) we wish we could give a slot in each event to whoever wanted to go to Nationals but they aren’t available, so we worked very hard to be fair—we know some of you were disappointed.

What can I do to qualify for Nationals next year?

Train, practice, work with the coaches. Enter all events. Encourage more people to join USASA and enter Big Alaska events—we get more wildcards if we have a larger membership than other Series.

Where do you get the judges? What qualifications do they have? Can I be a judge?

Are you interested in judging? We use a panel of judges who love snowboarding and skiing. They learn how to judge by understudying experienced judges and taking the USASA judging clinics. We pay a token amount ($25 this year) for each event. Interested in learning how to judge? Let us know!

Can I be a coach?

Our coaches are volunteers. This year they got a jacket, free lift tickets and the opportunity to travel to Nationals and coach training program athletes. We are planning on bringing up a USASA coaching trainer to certify all coaches and people who are interested in becoming coaches for Big Alaska. The cost will be about $175 per person.

Send the Board of Directors a resume (email or snailmail to PO Box 112126, A/A 99511) telling us about your snowboarding or skiing experience, work with kids, other qualifications (EMT, PSIA, etc), competitive experience, other sports you’ve been involved in, references and anything else pertinent. We’ll setup an interview. Want more information? All coaching positions open. Click here.