Dressed in their team ski jackets and finding safety in numbers, the athletes competing in the 2006 Northwestel Canadian Junior Freestyle Ski Championships were hard to miss as they checked into their hotel rooms.

The first of the more-than 100 skiers, as well as their coaches, began arriving on the weekend, with the largest groups touching down in Whitehorse Monday and Tuesday. While the athletes seemed anxious to settle in after what was for some a cross-country journey, they were no doubt also keen on checking out the competition site at Mount Sima.

With the official training scheduled for Tuesday and today, and qualification rounds starting Thursday, there's limited time to get accustomed to both the weather and site conditions.

But the youngsters from B.C., Alberta, Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba aged 19-and-under are up for the challenge. After all, these are quite possibly Canada's freestyle Olympians for 2010.

'These are future national team members, future World Cup team members and future Olympians,' said Vince Gauthier, the chief of competition for the junior nationals, who arrived in town last week to help solidify the sites.

'Every athlete who was on this year's Olympic team would have competed at this event.'

Canada is typically one of the strongest countries in freestyle skiing. Jennifer Heil won an Olympic gold medal in women's moguls last Saturday while Marc-Andre Moreau just missed out on a medal, finishing fourth in men's mogul action.

'This level of competition is pretty incredible,' agreed Richard Roy, the general manager of Mount Sima.

Alberta is sending the largest team to this week's championships, with 41 athletes hitting the slopes. Quebec, Ontario and B.C. are sending fair-sized teams as well and Manitoba is submitting several athletes.

'We've filled 110 spots, which is our cap,' said Gauthier. 'The turn out is way better than expected.'

'We got some pretty good press from the (2005 Western Canadian Juvenile Alpine Ski Championships, held last March),' said Roy. 'That generated a lot of interest in B.C., so a lot people are keen to come up here now. B.C. Alpine is actually really pushing to have the Westerns here again.

'The word is out.'

While B.C. will field many strong competitors at this week's event, Gauthier, who is also the technical director for the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association, said Quebec and Alberta should be the teams to beat. In moguls, he said, Quebec is always a threat. And in aerials, 'definitely Alberta has to be considered the strongest.'

The athletes will be vying for a total of 72 medals over four days of tough competition, in moguls, dual moguls, aerials and half-pipe. They'll be divided into three age categories: youth, juvenile and junior.

Typically, there are five disciplines, but the aerials and big air will be combined this year, in order to get more interest and participation from the younger kids, since they can now do the event without being inverted.

Some of the athletes will compete in all four disciplines while others will vie for a medal in just one event.

While the half-pipe was receiving the final touches Monday afternoon, there was still a lot of work left to be done on the moguls run and the aerials site.

Gauthier estimated the sites were probably 70 per cent complete Monday, but he expected to be 100 per cent ready to go for the start of qualifying Thursday. That's thanks in part to the volunteers who have gone out to the hill over the past few days to lend a helping hand, including a couple of high school gym classes.

Gauthier will also recieve help from several more national officials and staff by the time the competition starts. For the first couple of days, it was Gauthier and four other people doing the last-minute work.

'I always panic, that's my job,' smiled Gauthier. 'But there's nothing that would make me think this event is not going to happen.

'Hosting an event like this, there's such a big learning curve. From mountain operations, to volunteers ... it's their first time, so the hurdle was huge. We've had way less hiccups than we could have had.'

Especially considering Mother Nature hasn't been too co-operative this year. In an earlier interview, Roy said pretty much everything you see at Mount Sima right now is man-made snow.

'Since November 5, we've had probably 15 centimeters of natural snow,' he said. 'We normally budget for two weeks of snow making, but it seems like we've been making snow forever this year.

'Our pump has been operating a total of about 950 hours this year (pumping water to make the snow).'

Sima originally budgeted about $50,000 for snow making, grooming and labour this season, but that has more than doubled thanks to Mother Nature.

Now, with the temperature dipping below -20 C, the event could face some other weather-related challenges, if things don't heat up at least a few degrees by the weekend. Sima usually closes to the public at -25 C.

But for now, everything is a go for the next of many 2007 Canada Winter Games test events.

'Test events are an absolute priority and need to happen,' stated Gauthier. 'I'm glad to see we did it. This will make sure when the Games run, everything will run 100 per cent smoothly.'

Opening cermonies for the junior championships are at 7 p.m. this evening at Mount Sima.

While the athletes are training on Sima today, the real action gets underway Thursday with the half-pipe qualifications, running from 1:30 - 3 p.m.

On Friday, the first moguls run in the finals is scheduled for 10:15 a.m. while the second run will go at 1 p.m.

Half-pipe finals start at 10 a.m. Saturday while aerials qualifications are scheduled for 12:15 p.m. Aerials finals will go at 2 p.m.

The final day of action Sunday features the dual moguls elimination rounds at 10:15 a.m. and the dual moguls finals at 1 p.m.

The closing ceremonies are at 4 p.m. Sunday at Mount Sima.

Spectators can enjoy the aerial and mogul action by taking a short walk from the base of the hill, but to view the half-pipe competition, they will need a lift pass, as the site is further up the hill.

Roy stressed the hill is open to the general skiing public all week as well.