There is a club that exists for those N.C. State students who have a passion for skiing or snowboarding and do not have the rare privilege of owning a mountain range in your own backyard.

Unbeknownst to some, State’s ski and snowboard club is accessible to all students — in other words, navigating slaloms like a Winter X Games gold-medalist is not required.

The ski and snowboard club boasts approximately 115 members, and even offers racing teams within the club for the competitive and more experienced types. The two race captains — first-year graduate student Brendon Bass and senior Chris Johnson — have belonged to the team for four years each.

“We are a club, but within the club we have a team that competes in the USCSA Southeastern [conference],” Bass said. “So we have races, and the people who race we call ‘the team.’ Then we also have the club where people don’t have to race, they just come on the trips.”

The USCSA stands for the United States Collegiate Ski and Snowboard Association.

There are four scheduled trips for the spring semester, including Wintergreen Resort (Va.), Snowshoe Resort (W.Va.), Bryce Resort (Va.), and Sugar Mountain Resort (N.C.).

“The racing season starts in the spring semester,” Johnson said. “We have four races with the conference [that includes] Duke, Carolina, and Virginia Tech.”

The trips entice a large number of students to join the club as they vacate their dorms in favor of the slopes.

“Anyone can join the club,” Bass said. “We just went to Snowshoe this weekend and we had 70 people come.”

At Snowshoe, the men’s skiers showed well on the wintry powder, placing second and third overall, an impressive feat considering the disadvantage State is at in traveling to a venue where snow is in abundance.

“[Our performance] was really good since [other schools] have guys that practice four days a week,” Johnson said.

Both men and women compete in different racing events, which accommodate both skiers and snowboarders.

“For skiers, they have giant slalom and regular slalom. For snowboarders, they have just the giant slalom,” Bass said. “Each category — men’s skiers, women’s skiers, men’s snowboarders, and women’s snowboarders — has a total of 10 people. There is an ‘A’ group, which is five [people], and a ‘B’ group, which is five [people].”

The skiers and snowboarders that compete vary from race to race, but it is fairly simple to become part of the team, so long as you possess some talent.

“We usually alternate who races because it’s hard to see who is good at racing and who is not,” Johnson said. “If you’re any good at racing, we’ll put you on the team — no problem.”

Senior club treasurer Sarah Andrews said the team does not have a true starting lineup.

“The first race we [chose who got to race] by seniority,” Andrews said. “It gets switched up each weekend so everybody has a chance to race.”

Though State’s geographical disadvantage prevents the team from practicing consistently, there is still a great deal of competition that exists.

“It’s pretty competitive,” Andrews said. “Some schools practice but obviously we don’t because we are just too far from a mountain like Appalachian State. So we are not highly competitive because we just don’t have the resources that other schools have.”

Despite the lack of resources, challenging rival schools is good, clean fun, no matter the sport, according to Johnson.

“Along with Carolina and Duke, you have schools like Appalachian and Virginia and they got a mountain range right there,” Johnson said. “So it’s good for us to just come up on the weekends and be able to compete.”

In past years, the club has ventured outside the vicinity of North Carolina and visited Quebec, Canada, Killington, Vt., and Park City, Utah, the latter of which was this year’s winter break trip, an annual event for the club.

The club meets every Tuesday night at 7:30 pm in Carmichael Gym. If you wish to participate in the annual winter break trip or compete in any of the races, you are expected to pay dues of $50 for accommodations and transportation.