PARK CITY, Utah (AP) – While most girls her age are lounging by the pool this summer, Rachael Pack will be somersaulting and twisting off ramps high above the water.

With no snow, Utah Olympic Park is where the seventh-grader will practice her jumps in preparation for her first season as the youngest member to make the U.S. Ski Team.

“It’s still really fun,” Rachael, who turned 13 on Friday, says about training at the pool instead of on the slopes. “When you go off the jump, it feels like you’re just beginning to go off a roller coaster – going to a loop-d-loop kind of thing.”

Rachael was added to the U.S. “C” freestyle roster last month – before she even officially became a teenager. Though she’s years away from World Cup and Olympic competition, she will still train with the country’s best as part of the national team.

“We’re kind of excited about it because she can learn our system, and it’s going to be pretty ingrained with her,” U.S. freestyle coach Jeff Wintersteen says. “She always has a smile on her face and really loves to jump.”

Rachael has spent nearly all her life in Park City, growing up around freestyle skiing. She was 10 when her big brother, Joe, won the Olympic silver medal, right up the street from the family home.

“I think it’s fantastic. She’s pretty young but she’s been working hard for the past couple of years,” Joe Pack, 26, says. “She’s like a sponge. She just soaks it up.”

Physically, Rachael’s youth is hard to miss. She bounces along the pool deck at Utah Olympic Park with her braces and long, blond ponytail.

Next month, Rachael will be with the team for dryland training in Toronto. Then the aerialists return to Park City and hit the pool for the summer.

She acknowledges there’s a little fear, but not enough to keep her from soaring off the practice ramps and splashing into the pool. She’s nailed the full back flip with a full twist, which she calls the foundation for more complicated moves. Now, she wants to work on doubles – even though she’s not allowed to do them competitively until she’s 15.

“I’m actually really nervous when I go off the jump,” she says. “As soon as I get it, it’s more comfortable and I’ll just do it again and again until I get it down.”

Rachael, who won the girls aerials at the Freestyle Junior Olympics in March, is the youngest member of the U.S. national team since Kate Reed made it as a 14-year-old in 1999. Now 20, Reed is one of the leaders on the “A” team.

At 5-foot-3, Rachael is already one of the taller female aerialists and still has more growing ahead of her. Her eye is on Vancouver in 2010. Until then, she’ll have plenty of chances to work on her jumps in NorAm events, a step below the World Cup, and junior elite events.

“What she did wasn’t extraordinary when she came in but she’s worked on it. What’s great about Rachael is that she’s self motivated,” says Bruce Erickson, Rachael’s personal coach. “You look at her, she’s an average girl. But she’s an extraordinarily mentally tough girl.”

The Pack family moved from New Hampshire to Park City in 1992, not long after Joe went from an aspiring alpine jumper to freestyle. Since then, Penny and Jim Pack have grown more comfortable seeing their children take the risky flights above the snow.

“It’s not a good sport for a mother,” Penny Pack says. “Joe just always seems to land on his feet. I’m hoping she has the same cat quality. It’s good to see them land.”