On Saturday, the Sacramento State Ski and Snowboard Club will compete against how many other schools to see who really has skiing and snowboarding skills.

The club will send two teams of seven to participate in the competition, known as Snow Warz, which will take place at Northstar at Tahoe. The events is sponsored by Red Bull.

“It’ll be our first year,” Jesse Layton said about participating in Snow Warz. Layton is the president of Sac State’s Ski and Snowboard Club. “It should be pretty fun.”

The Ski and Snowboard club meets on Thursday nights and is available everyone – beginners and professionals alike.

“The way I got involved with the Sac State Ski Club was by visiting the booth on campus during the first couple weeks of school,” said Ben Gheen, vice president of the Ski and Snowboard Club. “I had only been to the snow a couple of times in my life but I was interested in learning to snowboard.”

Layton said the club found out about Snow Warz through a friend who is a representative for Red Bull. The club was later invited to participate.

Jessica Van Pernis, who works at Northstar at Tahoe, said there are schools from all over the West Coast competing at Snow Warz. Some states that have colleges joining in for the fun are Washington, Arizona, Montana, Oregon and of course, California.

“There will be around 200 to 250 collegiate athletes,” said Dave Goto, the event car manager for Red Bull North America.

Goto is actually one of the founding members of Snow Warz, which started three years ago at Western Washington University.

“We had our snowboarding team, but there wasn’t a lot going on for competition,” Goto said during a telephone interview. Wanting a little bit more from his snowboarding team, Goto sprung into action.

“I was doing an internship program with Red Bull and pitched the idea,” he said. “It was pretty easy to pitch the event and get it going; Red bull always creates awesome experiences.”

The first Snow Warz took place in Snoqualmie Pass, Wash., and Goto said there were about 16 schools that competed that year. The second year it has about 32 schools competing, and took place at Snoqualmie Pass.

This year, Goto said the event has grown quite a bit, with 35 to 50 schools competing.

“There has been a lot of buzz about the event,” Goto remarked. “There are more competitors this year, and it will be kind of cool to centralize it this year.”

It will be centralized this year because Goto said there are schools from all over the West Coast and Southern California coming to compete, and Northstar is a central location.

Spectators should be prepared to be surprised at Snow Warz because with Red Bull behind this event, anything can happen.

“A bunch of skydivers last year dropped into the event,” Goto said. “Red Bull likes to surprise by doing things like having skydivers drop in.”

He is not sure if there will be skydivers dropping in this year because of the weather, but there will be something special for sure.

“It is definitely a competition, and definitely a lot of hanging out and having fun at this event,” Goto added. “It’s just great that Red Bull puts on this event.”

Skiers and snow boarders alike will be able to show off their skills and even win some awards at the competition. The Northstar at Tahoe website lists some awards such as Best Trick, Best Rail Rider, Innovation and Best Yard Sale.

A “yard sale” is when a skier or snow boarder crashes really hard.

“It is the best and respectable crash of the day,” Goto said. “We may as well give them a little bit of love since they are charging so hard.”

There will also be an award for the person who charges the most. Goto said charging is when someone pushes the limit with skiing and snowboarding.

“You’ll never progress unless you take some spills and go all out,” Goto said about charging.

Anyone is welcome to head up to Snow Warz to cheer on Sac State’s competitors, and there will be music and some parties going on afterward.

This is the first year that Northstar will be hosting Snow Warz. Van Pernis said that Red Bull put out a press release for Snow Warz, and this is how they found about the event.

Snow Warz isn’t just for those in the Ski and Snowboard Club at Sac State. According to the Red Bull website, any college student can participate with a team of at least four, although the deadline to sign up was March 24.

Entry into Snow Warz is free, and schools can enter more than one team, which is what Sac State is doing. Registration for the event is the day before, and then there will be an open practice on April 12 the hour before the competition begins. The actual competition starts at 10 a.m.

Van Pernis said that she wasn’t sure if all of the participants were going to be staying at Northstar, but there is convenient on-site lodging for participants and spectators.

Stephanie Samsel can be reached at [email protected]