January 2026 Recap
Once again, we have a full house for the Winter Semester of 2026. With the largest number of skiers and snowboarders in Wy’East history, competition has been heating up across all disciplines. January kicked off with an incredible milestone as senior Finley Good became the first active Wy’East student to cmpete in the X Games. Finley did an outstanding job representing Wy’East in knuckle huck, earning a top-ten finish.
Finley was joined by Academy Alumni Konnor Ralph in slopestyle and Nick Goepper in halfpipe, both of whom will represent the United States at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics this February. Meanwhile, the rest of our students have been busy hitting the road. Our skiers competed in the Europa Cup slopestyle event in Italy, while our mountain bikers traveled to New Zealand for a series of competitions. Senior Talulah Musil has already earned a podium finish, with many more events still to come.
Our skaters headed south to take advantage of the sunny Southern California weather, while also visiting brands and universities. Back at home, Wy’East skiers and snowboarders stacked podiums in every category at the local Mt. Hood Series USASA events. All of this took place as the word’s best skiers and snowboarders trained on our landing bag in preparation for the X Games and the Olympics. That training has already paid off, with this year’s X Games champions Luca Harrington, Mac Forehand, Alex Hall, and Mark McMorris all spending time on campus. We look forward to welcoming them back after they continue their success in Italy.
Over the break, our maintenance team, Archer and Ethan, stayed busy renovating units 15 and 17, which now feature updated bathrooms and heated floors. College acceptance letters have continued to pour info our seniors, and we are excited to see the incredible accomplishments ahead for this next generation of Wy’East alumni.
Thank you for your continued support. Be sure to follow these amazing student athletes online!
Mike Hanley, Head of School
Student life
We’re off to a strong and busy start this semester! Our students have jumped right into the action, balancing competitions, travel, and campus life while still finding time to unwind and enjoy the community around them.
The semester began with a full schedule of local competitions, keeping our students active and engaged right out of the gate. After all that hustle, we made time to relax an recover with a visit to Mt. Hood Oregon Resort hot tubs. Our winter week of welcome consisted of campus-wide events, including a school-wide dodgeball game and scavenger hunt that brought lots of energy and laughter to campus. We’re also excited to welcome seven new students to the program this semester. Everyone is settling in well, and it’s been great to see new connections forming.
We’ve been treated to some amazing sunny weather and are patiently waiting for winter to fully arrive. In the meantime, we’ve taken full advantage of the conditions. Highlights include a trip to Pacific City to surf and an outing to a local trout farm, where students caught an impressive 76 fish. Thanks to Travis and the culinary team, these fish have been featured in meals for our students during Fish Fridays.
We’re excited to be collaborating with Snowdays again this semester. Snowdays partners with youth outreach organizations to create access to snowboarding. Through the physical and mental challenges of the program, participants are empowered to apply their successes on the mountain to their every day lives.
Starting this week, students will be heading out on the road as travel ramps up for the season. It’s shaping up to be an exciting semester! We’re proud of how our students have embraced such a full start to the semester and look forward to what’s ahead.
Academics
The new semester is off to a strong start in Academic Department. Students are already focused and settling into new courses and reestablishing routines. Our faculty has been been impressed by students’ preparedness and willingness to challenge themselves early in the term. We look forward to building on this momentum and supporting students as they set goals and continue to grow academically and athletically throughout the semester.
We are also excited to begin sharing college acceptance news for the Class of 2026 as decisions start to arrive. Our seniors have approached the application process with thoughtfulness and determinization, and early results reflect their hard work both in and out of the classroom. We look forward to celebrating additional acceptances int he coming weeks and guiding students through the next steps of their college decisions-making process.
Athletics
Everyone came into this semester refreshed from winter break and ready to get into training and competitions. We continue to have sunny weather and the teams are capitalizing on the spring like conditions on the mountain and dry concrete down on campus. Even though snow is sparce on the mountain, our teams are still training hard on the new landing bag in our backyard. Our mountain bike team had a great start to an epic trip in New Zealand and our skate team enjoyed some sunny days in Southern California.
Focus for the Week
Week 1: Winter Semester Week of Welcome
Week 2: Training, travel, and competitions
Week 3: Training, travel, competitions, and some time on the Landing Bag for snow teams.
Highlights
Finley Good competing in the X - Games Knuckle Huck
Talulah Musil podiuming in a pump track competition
Our snow teams had a massive amount of podiums at USASA events
Our skate team hanging with some industry professionals down in Southern California
Freeski
Our ski team has a divide and conquer mentality this semester! The crew has been working hard across the board. From ensuring they are on pace in school to daily training to crafting the perfect podium run, the team is feeling connected and fired up.
Focus for the Week
Week 1: Profile mental skills and behaviors as athlete AND individual against Psychological Characteristics of Developing Expertise.
Week 2: Multiple Run Options. Utilizing these at the right time for tactical success. Continuing emphasis on PCDE's and utilizing them.
Week 3: Develop a social media engagement routine that can be executed daily to grow following.
Highlights
Integrating new students into our team smoothly
Slight changes to the morning warm up routine has set everyone up for success
Students are progressing quickly
We had a great mock event with the kids to start the semester. Students were feeling the pressure and expectations which is exactly what the coaches wanted. Haha!
Mountain Bike
New Zealand is providing the goods as the team continues to make a mark on the south Island spreading the stoke of biking with tricks and style. There has been a lot of progression for the team, which we have balanced out with school work and home life.
Focus for the Week
Week 1: Strength and conditioning. Try new tricks on indoor airbag. Get ahead in School for the upcoming trip to New Zealand.
Week 2: Students gain strength and think of new tricks to try.
Week 3: Plan out workouts to target areas of weakness. Increase core workouts. Video review to show tricks for them to attempt.
Highlights
New Zealand Magazza Fest was an amazing experience for the whole team
Watou back flipped canned one of the biggest jumps in NZ
Wyatt and Talulah’s birthdays were awesome to celebrate together as a team in such an amazing place!
Skate
The Skate team has had a great start to the winter semester with sunny days and warmer weather feeling like Spring in Winter. We’ve ridden a ton of local skate parks between campus and Portland. We finished the month strong with a trip down to Southern California, where the team met up with Heimana Reynolds and some other skate industry connections to talk about what it’s like to live, work, and skate in LA.
Focus for the Week
Week 1: Welcome new students; get out into local skate parks like Estacada and Sandy.
Week 2: Utilize the sunny weather on campus. Ride Portland & Happy Valley DIY spots, hit tactics for equipment prior to Southern California trip. Pre load school work so that minimal time needed while on the road.
Week 3: Southern California Trip: Meet with Industry professionals & skate shops, visit 2 colleges, enjoy warm sunny skate weather.
Highlights
The Central hub of food and Jokers Skate shop in Huntington Beach which Cam Hickey now skates for
Snowboard
Spring riding in January has been amazing. Students have been working hard on trick progressions and dialing in competition runs for the season. It’s been all smiles each time the kids come lapping around the terrain park.
Focus for the Week
Week 1: Easy Style progression and familiarity with new students. Set expectations with training and group riding. Introduce peer mentorship.
Week 2: Have some fun days on the hill and around campus getting creative.
Week 3: Express yourself through your competitive snowboarding. Opportunities to Win at sub-elite events. Multiple Run Options. Utilizing these at the right time for tactical success.
Highlights
33 medals from the first 3 USASA events!
CULINARY
It has been a great month for the culinary team. We have implemented some new things in the café including switching the miso bar to weekly soups. We have also started projecting the weekly menu in the cafeteria so that students can anticipate upcoming meals. This menu is also sent out in the Dean of Student’s weekly update.
We have had a great time preparing all the students favorites foods. Kellen and Joe L. in the evening, have been doing a great job creating a wide range of food from kabobs, Philly cheese steaks sandwiches, BBQ ribs and so many others. Joe S., in the morning with the help of Orin, has really set up the game for breakfast and lunch. It has been a truly blessing to have this crew in the morning. They have been making breakfast sandwiches, pancakes, and all their favorites. Lunches are on point. One lunch this past week, we cooked up trout that students caught at a local fishing farm. All the students loved it. We are looking forward to seeing what February holds!
