Aspen, CO – The annual Aspen Winternational and the Lake Louise Winterstart World Cup ski races each this week received the official green light from International Ski Federation (FIS) officials, who confirmed solid snow conditions for the North American leg of the Audi FIS Alpine World Cup.nRacing kicks off Saturday, Nov. 27 in Aspen, Colo., with women’s giant slalom followed by slalom on Sunday. That same weekend the Bombardier Lake Louise Winterstart takes place with a men’s downhill on Saturday followed by a super G on Sunday. The following week, the women head to Lake Louise for downhill races on Dec. 3-4 and a super G on the 5th.

FIS Men’s Race Director Helmut Schmalzl, Men’s weekend Chief of Race Darrell MacLachlan and others participated in the Lake Louise inspection, known as “snow control.”

“The approval from FIS today is a credit to the incredible effort of volunteers as well as the cooperation from our partners, including the Lake Louise Ski Area and all the other supporters of the event,” said ROC Race Chairman John Cassels. “There is a lot of work to be done between now and the first training run on Wednesday and the Winterstart volunteers are out there right now getting it done.”

Incredible early-season snow conditions across the Rockies catered to a top notch pre-Aspen preparation period for U.S. athletes. It also allows a rare shot for the U.S. Team to train on the race hill prior to next weekend’s races with sessions both Friday and Saturday this week.

“It’s awesome to be able to get on the hill early,” said U.S. Ski Team women’s technical Head Coach Trevor Wagner. “It allows us to get a look at the terrain and give the girls some confidence on the slope before race day. With this being such an early race, it’s not easy to get the hill ready in time for us to train on it, but Aspen did a great job maximizing the natural snow to give us a few days on it.”

The U.S. women also geared up with a series of FIS sanctioned race rehearsals at Copper Mountain, Colo., on Tuesday and Wednesday. Kiley Staples (Park City, Utah) nabbed the giant slalom win Tuesday, while Colorado local and four-time Olympian Sarah Schleper (Vail, Colo.) earned the slalom win ahead of Julia Mancuso (Squaw Valley, Calif.) on Wednesday, then took a few powder turns to celebrate.

“It was my first win of the year and my first powder of the year,” Schleper told the Vail Daily. “Which is better is a hard call. Nothing beats a powder day, except maybe a win. It’s like cake with frosting.”

Aspen Mountain is schedule to open to the public for the season on Thanksgiving Day. Lake Louise opened to the public on Nov. 5.