Fin Bailey of the University of Vermont carries a large loudspeaker to the top of Saturday's racecourse during the Bates Carnival at Black Mountain in Rumford. The member of the U.S. Ski Team raced earlier Saturday during the men's race and brought up the tunes to set the tempo for the women's race. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

Bates College hosted the first “carnival” of the season Friday and Saturday at Black Mountain in Rumford.

Bates is one of six colleges of the East that will host two days of ski racing before the NCAA Championships come to Jackson New Hampshire in March.

Schools in New England compete under the Eastern Intercollegiate Ski Association and the races are called carnivals. The alpine portion of the weekend was held at Sunday River in Newry.

Maine schools Colby College, Bowdoin College and Bates competed alongside the University of Vermont, Dartmouth College, Harvard, St. Michael’s, Middlebury, St. Lawrence University, the University of New Hampshire, Williams and Laval University.

Emma Charles of the University of New Hampshire competes in Saturday’s distance race during the Bates Carnival at Black Mountain in Rumford. Charles is a graduate of Mt. Blue High School in Farmington, where she won every Class A Nordic skiing state championship race in which she competed. Daryn Slover/Sun Journal

Dartmouth came out on top after two days of racing while being anchored by U.S. Ski Team members Ava Thurston and John Steel Hagenbuch.

Graduates of Edward Little High School in Auburn, Mt. Blue High School in Farmington and Gould Academy in Bethel competed over the weekend for Division I ski programs.

Hagenbuch also competed with his U.S. Ski teammate Fin Bailey of the University of Vermont to see who could carry the biggest and loudest speaker to top of the race course’s largest climb during the women’s distance race Saturday.

Now you know why college ski races are called carnivals.