{"id":2455037,"date":"2020-02-26T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-26T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=321525"},"modified":"2020-02-26T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-02-26T12:00:00","slug":"skico-to-offer-free-nastar-racing-ahead-of-nationals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/skico-to-offer-free-nastar-racing-ahead-of-nationals\/","title":{"rendered":"Skico to offer free NASTAR racing ahead of nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
A skier competes in the 2019 Liberty Mutual NASTAR Nationals at Squaw Valley in California.<\/strong>
Dave Camara\/ Camara Photoraphy<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

While the return of the NASTAR National Championships to Snowmass is still a month away, Aspen Skiing Co. is ready to start the celebration a bit early. This week, there will be a brief window where guests can take to the area\u2019s two NASTAR courses for free and see how they stand against the rest of the country.<\/p>\n

Racing will be free for guests on Aspen Mountain from Feb. 24 through Sunday. The NASTAR courses on Snowmass will be free for racers from Wednesday through Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Aspen Mountain course is open daily from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., while the Snowmass course operates from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays. Racers are asked to register and create a NASTAR profile ahead of time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are excited to open the NASTAR race courses for everyone to experience for free while they\u2019re on the mountain,\u201d Skico director of event development Deric Gunshor said in a statement. \u201cWe are excited to celebrate ski racing this spring at Aspen-Snowmass with two big events, and are looking forward to the energy it brings to our resort and the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

Snowmass will host NASTAR Nationals from March 24 to 28, an event that is being paired with the return of the U.S. Alpine Tech Championships from March 28 to 31 at both Snowmass and Aspen Highlands.<\/p>\n

NASTAR stands for National Standard Race and is a public, grassroots racing program that operates out of more than 100 resorts and clubs across the country. A handicapped system with numerous levels, it allows all kinds of different skiers to compete against each other regardless of location.<\/p>\n

Originally founded in 1968, NASTAR\u2019s current championship format began in 1998, with those races being held in Snowmass. Snowmass last hosted the NASTAR National Championships during a three-year stretch from 2013 to 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cNASTAR is a social network,\u201d NASTAR director Bill Madsen told the Snowmass Sun. \u201cIt\u2019s a way to tie like-minded people together with a common scoring system so they can see where they stack up with their family, their friends, their peers, and then really how they are doing against people within their own ability group.\u201d<\/p>\n

This will be the first time in 60 years that Aspen has hosted a U.S. Alpine Tech Championship event. Aspen recently hosted the 2016 Nor-Am Cup finals, which was used as a test event for the 2017 World Cup Finals. Aspen also hosted the 1950 World Championships as well as numerous World Cup races over the decades.<\/p>\n

Both events are free and open to the public, although a lift ticket will be required to access the race venue at Snowmass without hiking. The races at Aspen Highlands can be viewed from the base.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen they came to us with an opportunity to bid on it, it was kind of in tandem with this discussion around the U.S. Ski Team tech championships,\u201d Gunshor previously told the Snowmass Sun. \u201cTheir vision is really to bring the two sides of racing together and we were excited to be able to offer a unique combination of venues so the two events could overlap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aspen-Snowmass also will be host to Skico\u2019s annual Power of Four ski mountaineering race, which is scheduled for Saturday.<\/p>\n

acolbert@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A skier competes in the 2019 Liberty Mutual NASTAR Nationals at Squaw Valley in California.Dave Camara\/ Camara Photoraphy While the return of the NASTAR National Championships to Snowmass is still a month away, Aspen Skiing Co. is ready to start the celebration a bit early. This week, there will be a brief window where guests […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2455037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 13:40:13","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455037\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}