Bella Lynch and Townes Bakke have a lot to be proud of this ski season. Aside from being team captains of the girl’s and boy’s alpine teams, respectively, and participating heavily on their Nordic team, they also competed this year as Skimeisters.

As Skimeisters, they had the opportunity to compete in both Nordic and alpine disciplines, racing in four different races – classic, skate, slalom, and giant slalom. After competing in a certain number of races throughout the Nordic and alpine seasons, these skiers took on the challenge of doing all four of these races in one day.

The races took place on historic Howelsen Hill, in Steamboat Springs, the oldest operating ski area in North America (having been run since 1915). By the time all was said and done, Lynch took home third place in the women’s division of the Skimeister championships and Bakke took home eighth place in the men’s division.

Lynch, as always, is thrilled to be a part of the ski program at Nederland, enjoying both Nordic and alpine for being able to compete with different athletes from different schools and with varying degrees of experience in skiing. She feels she pushed herself as much as she possibly could this season and felt accomplished because of that. She felt that returning to more normal ski races after COVID was also incredibly cathartic.

Bakke has been alpine skiing since he was nine years old and was convinced by other friends on the Nederland Nordic team to join. He feels that being able to participate in both sports allowed him to hone his skills in skiing overall a lot more and he felt a lot more rewarded as an athlete for being able to improve on those skills. He loved being able to compete in the Skimeister and meeting new people through the skiing program, as the program covers kids from all across the Boulder Valley School District.

Both champions encourage those interested in winter sports to try out for alpine and Nordic at the high school level. Lynch in particular encourages those in Ned and the Boulder County area as a whole to it try out. They praise alpine and Nordic as challenging but rewarding sports for people interested, and they can’t wait for more people to try out and perhaps become Skimeisters themselves.