Platinums for Parkites at NASTAR Nationals

Nastar holds its annual National Championships. Photo: Michele Roepke

ASPEN, Colo. — This year’s NASTAR National champions were crowned Saturday at Snowmass – and many of them are from Park City.

Both Deer Valley Resort and Park City Mountain are participating NASTAR ski areas, where the public can take a one-off trip down the course or ink up for daily, weekly and/or monthly runs for decades, some with a goal of qualifying for Nationals.

Donna Allen is one of those frequent racers at Deer Valley Resort. Allen won a platinum at Nationals Saturday in her adult age group; her team name was the DVants.

The event featured two other Park City families who qualified for, competed in, and won platinums: the Probertses and the Sheppards.

The Sheppards’ platinums were won at Nationals by Skyler, Jett and Sebastian; the rest of the family is represented in the Nastar system by Maggie, Andrew and Leyton.

Park City’s Probertses were represented by Wynter and Soelden in their platinum-winning achievements at Nationals. Soelden competed in the boys’ group and Wynter in teenage girls’.

NASTAR stands for NAtional STAndard Race, and is the largest public grassroots ski racing program in the world. Founded in 1968, NASTAR gives recreational racers an opportunity to compete and compare their scores with friends and family regardless of when and where they race using the NASTAR handicap system. NASTAR was developed by SKI Magazine in 1968 and now boasts more than 100,000 races at over 100 resorts around the country.

Racers are scored by earning a handicap that represents their ability. The handicap provides participants with a tangible number, or handicap, that is the percentage they are behind the time of the National Standard or the National Pacesetter. The 2015 Pacesetter at Nationals was none other than Park City’s Ted Ligety, Olympic Ski Racing Champion.

Event prize money, enough to cover travel or lodging to these world-class destinations, is awarded to men and women equally.

Squaw Valley hosted the NASTAR Nationals; Steamboat Springs did the honors in 2020. Squaw Valley and Steamboat are Alterra resorts like Deer Valley. Aspen Snowmass is an independent affiliate of Alterra.