The U10 Alpine Program wrapped up the season on March 15, 2025. It’s been an incredible season of tremendous progress and growth for all SSWSC U10 athletes. 

The U10 Alpine Program fits into the SSWSC programming matrix as the bridge between the introductory/fundamentals programs in U8 and the competitive programs at the U12/U13 levels. Athletes in this age group are transitioning from the ‘fundamentals’ phase to the ‘learning to train’ phase, and the program curriculum will align with the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Phases 2-3.

This year we had 129 athletes divided into 17 skiing groups.

Many athletes also participate in cross country skiing and ski jumping through SSWSC. Head Coaches Nicole Cosby and Cedar Beauregard have been leading the U10 Alphine program together for three years now. Nicole Cosby describes this year’s coaching team as the best they have ever had.

“In U10, we expose all athletes to staple exercises such as skiing on 1 ski, carving, outside ski turns, proper pole touch execution and timing, and hop turns. On Saturdays, training is at Steamboat Resort; groups are being led by their coaches through directed free-skiing,” explained coach Nicole. “We try to avoid groomed runs, and instead ski as much off-piste as conditions allow including moguls, tree runs, steeps, etc. We have seen a tremendous amount of improvement from all athletes.”

Now that we are at the end of the season, the second-year U10 athletes are given the opportunity to sign up for Ski-Up clinics in freestyle moguls, alpine racing and devo freeskiing to see which program they would like to continue their journey in next year.  Most importantly, we wish to instill the passion for this amazing sport regardless of where the journey takes our graduating athletes next season, and we hope that we have ignited that flame in all of our U10 athletes.

Weekly Steamboat Cups have been encouraged for all U10 athletes to get exposed to friendly and no-pressure competitions. Some athletes chose to compete state wide at the end of season championships:

Coach Evan Soard took four athletes to the Rocky Mountain Devo Championships on the Ambush course in Winter Park on March 8 and 9.

Miriam Colon took 1st place F9 (Female under 9)
Elliott Lowell 2nd M9 (Male under 9)
Lillian Berry 5th F11 (Female under 11)
Vivian Colon 8th F11 (Female under 11)

“All four athletes skied their best runs of the season during champs,” said coach Evan Soard. “The future is bright for TeamSteam.”

Nick Scott and Calder Daenzer took 13 U10 athletes to compete at the U10 Championships in Aspen Highlands on the same weekend where they competed in GS on Saturday and SL on Sunday. “It was a super fun weekend,” Nick said. “All the kids skied really well, and we saw improvement in each athlete over the course of the weekend. A highlight for me was watching the athletes support one another. They were all very loud cheering on their teammates from the top.”

Nick and Calder also described another highlight for them was the free ski day at Aspen Snowmass the Friday prior to the events where they skied some difficult terrain, and all the kids rocked it. 

Grace Marra - 17th in GS Race 2
Payton Smith - 13th in GS Race 1 & 12th in GS Race 2
And 11th in SL Race 1
Millie Erbele - 12 in SL Race 1
Luc Daenzer - 19th in SL Race 1
Griffin Curry - 18th in SL Race 2

And the icing on the cake, or hill? All U10 ski groups had the opportunity to ski with our own Steamboat Olympians, Bobbie Aldighieri and Nelson Carmichel.