SOUTH POMFRET — Vermont’s best high school Alpine skiers met at Saskadena Six on Thursday. However, the conditions couldn’t have been much worse for the slalom race, the first of two qualifiers for the Eastern High School Championships, which will be held later this winter.

Temperatures soared into the mid-40s throughout the afternoon and left competitors focused less on speed than on staying upright. More than 30 runs ended prematurely in a competition featuring roughly 60 skiers total for the boys and girls races, each of whom took three runs.

“I honestly wasn’t expecting it to be this bad,” said Woodstock High’s Chloe Masillo, who tied Champlain Valley’s Ella Lisle for the day’s best girls time of 44.17 seconds. The course “is very slushy and slow and kind of throws you around. You’re just trying to get through it.”

Said fellow Wasp Bode Wood: “These are the worst ruts I’ve ever seen in my life.”

By the third run’s end, skiers were taking more than a minute to make it down. Wipeouts drew oohs and ahhs from spectators below.

Woodstock coach Cheyenne Wood said the course was in solid shape Wednesday but that his heart sank when he arrived Thursday morning and saw the top of Saskadena’s slopes obscured in a haze.

“Fog is death on snow,” Wood said. “There was a skiable surface to begin with, but once we broke through that, it got down to the dirt in some places.”

Bode Wood’s best time was 40.93, the third-fastest among boys, and he and Masillo left themselves in good standing for the season’s second Eastern qualifier, a Feb. 5 giant slalom race at the Middlebury Snow Bowl.

A couple of good runs there and the pair should be part of Vermont’s 12-person boys and girls teams that will compete at Attitash Mountain Resort in Bartlett, N.H., on a date to be determined. The Easterns include 12 other state teams from east of the Rocky Mountains.

Such a trip would be the third consecutive for Masillo and Wood, who are Woodstock’s senior co-captains and three-sport athletes. Masillo also plays soccer and tennis and Wood soccer and lacrosse.

“I thought Chloe and Bode were very measured and skied smart,” Cheyenne Wood said. “They knew they were No. 1 out of the gate and that the course was the best it was going to be all day long. They recorded some very good times.

“They knew didn’t need to win the race. It was more a matter of positioning themselves for qualifying.”

Hartford was scheduled to compete Thursday but dropped out. Rivendell Academy was the only other Upper Valley school in attendance, with Allie Vogelien finishing two seconds behind Masillo during their second run in 46.76. Rivendell’s Harper Traendly finished 17th during her second run, in 51.07.

Woodstock next competes Monday during a Southern Vermont League race at Pico Mountain in Rutland.

Tris Wykes can be reached at twykes@vnews.com.