The word at Vermont's Winter Carnival, as everywhere else on the eastern seaboard, is snow. There isn't any, so Harvard's cross-country ski team packed its boards and headed for the Lake Placid Olympics site for cross country skiing.

But whether they were poling in New York or schussing at Vermont's Stowe ski area, Harvard's skiwomen had a rough road down the mountain against New England's Division I competition, pulling in eighth out of ten teams.

Kristen Hodgkins led the Crimson effort with her 14th place in the slalom, but the rest of the team had difficulties ranging from simple "bad days" to competing with the best of the East.

Senior captain Vera Fajtova explained, "I just didn't ski that fast, finished around 30th in the slalom, and somewhere around there in the giant slalom."

To add to Harvard's worries, Fajtova reports that "the women's teams this year are really amazing. The women who missed the Olympic team decided to go to college." Bravely, she added, "It's exciting to ski against these people."

The going was tough in New York, too. The best Harvard could muster in cross country competition was captain Maureen Devlin's 25th place, followed by Missy Holbrook in 28th.

In spite of the low numbers, Devlin saw promise in her team's performance. "This race was the first time either Missy or I broke into the twenties, and when Sarah Sewel joins us next week, we will have three girls who score," Devlin said.

That third scorer will be crucial because Harvard needs to retain the eighth place ranking after next week's Dartmouth Carnival in order to continue competing in Division I. Leading ninth place Bates College by a single point, Harvard is, as Fajtova confessed "barely hanging in there."