This weekend, the Dartmouth ski team took to the slopes and trails to compete in the Dartmouth Carnival right here in Hanover and Lyme. The Big Green placed second in its only home carnival of the season with 797 points, just edging out the University of New Hampshire’s 796 points but falling short of the University of Vermont’s 951 points. The Big Green has placed second in each of the team’s four carnivals this season.
On the first day of the two-day event, the Big Green found success on the trails of the Oak Hill Touring Center, leaving the day in first place after winning performances from the Nordic team. First-year Luke Allan ’25 led the Big Green in the men’s 10k classic with a time of 28:43.6, placing second overall and earning the Big Green 47 points. To round out the men’s scoring for Dartmouth, Wally Magill ’25 finished with a time of 28:53.7 for fourth overall and Cameron Wolfe ’23 placed seventh with a time of 29:11.7.
On the women’s side, Jasmine Drolet ’25 won the 5k classic with a time of 16:06.4, earning 50 points for the Big Green. Garvee Tobin ’24 earned a 4th place finish for the Big Green, but competed in the race as an individual and thus did not contribute to the team score. The next scoring Dartmouth skier was Rena Schwartz ’22, who came in just over a minute behind Drolet with a time of 17:13.3 for fifth place. Meanwhile, captain Callie Young ’22 placed ninth, clocking 17:23.7. With first place finishes for both the men (123 points) and the women (124 points), the Big Green led the day with 247 points.
“Everyone on the team was thinking that this is our home course, and we know this better than anyone else,” Young said. “It’s kind of a unique course; there’s lots of transitions and we devoted our Wednesday practice to knowing the course and developing a good plan… It’s a 5k, so it was super short, so we just focused on leaving it all out there and going as hard as we can.”
On day two of the Carnival, the Big Green’s Nordic squad competed at Oak Hill for the 10k freestyle while the alpine group took on the slalom. Due to issues with the giant slalom course, the event was canceled and the regular slalom scores counted for double the points.
Back on the Oak Hill trails, Drolet led Dartmouth again with a second place finish (32:07.3), while Young improved on the day before to place fourth (33:20.7). Schwartz was right behind her in fifth place with a time of 33:20.2. The women scored a combined 127 points in the event. Despite considering herself more of a shorter-distance skier, Young credited her improvement Saturday in part to her experience growing up skiing in Vermont.
“The conditions were kind of sloppy, and I think that, being from the east, anyone from the east is pretty good at skiing in sloppy conditions so that's kind of an advantage,” Young said. “It was just such a fun weekend and even though the weather was above freezing both days, the vibes were off the chart. It was great to be in front of the home crowd and everyone who came out was awesome.”
On the men's side, Allan built on his success from day one to win the 10k freestyle in a time of 26:07.5, edging out Middlebury College’s Peter Wolter by just 3.2 seconds. Magill came in fifth place with a time of 26:38.5 and Wolfe placed 17th with a time of 28:17.5. Allan, who was the first skier to take on the course Saturday due to the individual start structure, knew he had an advantage going first on the fresh snow.
“Saturday, we knew it was going to be warming up throughout the day and I was the very first start,” Allan said. “I was just skiing my own race [because] I wasn’t going to see anyone else on the course. I was just trying to ski strongly and smoothly since it was going to get slower throughout the day, so I wanted to keep an efficient technique.”
On the slopes, fifth-year Kalle Wagner ’21 led the Dartmouth men with a second place finish in the slalom. During his first run, Wagner clocked the fastest time of the day with a 48.78 and was the only skier to break the 49-second mark. Also placing in the top 10 was first-year Oliver Morgan ’25, a Hanover native who grew up skiing the Dartmouth Skiway and watching the Dartmouth Carnival.
“I grew up at the skiway, my dad was on the Dartmouth ski team [as an] ’86 and I’ve been here my entire life so I’ve pretty much watched every carnival,” Morgan said. “If I wanted to race one race this year, it would’ve been Dartmouth Carnival. My brother was racing it for Colby and it was fun being at the start and knowing everyone on the hill.”
With Morgan, Drolet, Allan and Magill all scoring for Dartmouth in their events, the first-years led the way for the Big Green. Combined, the rookie crew scored a total of 307 of Dartmouth’s 797 points.
“This fall, I was really impressed by how hard [they] worked all fall and how seamlessly they integrated themselves into the team, so it’s been really exciting to watch them crush it this winter,” Young said. “It’s really powerful to have these first-years come onto the team and push everyone else on the team, even the older skiers. I’m really excited for them and we’re lucky to have them.”
With just under a month left until the NCAA Championships in Utah, the Big Green are gearing up for two more big weekends before the culminating races. Next weekend, the team will travel to Middlebury, Vermont to compete in the Middlebury Carnival. The following weekend, the team will take on the UNH Carnival, its last one before NCAAs. With another Dartmouth Carnival in the books, the team is looking to keep its momentum going.
“We’ve really got a good team culture this year,” Allan said. “At practice everyone is motivated to just drop everything that's going on in their lives and focus on practice and everyone is being uplifted by that.”
