While the Winter Olympics are underway in Milan-Cortina, La Crosse will be hosting its own crop of top athletes.

With temperatures expected to climb during the day, the weather is going to be perfect this weekend as over 400 of the state’s best head to town for the Wisconsin High School Ski & Snowboard Championships at Mt. La Crosse — the largest event of its kind in the nation.

This marks the 33rd consecutive year the event has been hosted in La Crosse, with 2,500 spectators expected on the mountain.

The state meet takes place Saturday through Monday, but athletes are already showing up — and even camping out in tents, a tradition reserved only for events of this magnitude.

“It just transforms our whole area for these next four days,” Mt. La Crosse manager Darcie Breidel said. “And it is going to get a little crazy. I think with this warm weather people are going to come out and so it’s going to be a really festive atmosphere.”

With highs expected in the 50s, conditions are perfect — though snow tends to melt when it’s not freezing.

“We anticipate these warmups — when we had snowmaking weather we made a lot, in fact extra,” Breidel said. “So we’ve got piles of it — it kind of insulates itself and we will need to probably tap into some of those reserves this weekend, probably.”

As for the events themselves, Breidel said she enjoys the boardercross the most — where athletes navigate a specialized course. At Mt. La Crosse, Breidel said their crew spends hours moving snow to create piles and berms for the riders to race up and over.

“Obviously the Olympics are going on,” Breidel said, “and so — just on a whole different level — we’re seeing it in our own backyard here. The boardercross is fun partly because it’s a newer event — it hasn’t been around as long as ski racing.”

Breidel noted that Mt. La Crosse will remain open to the public throughout the weekend. The state events usually wrap up around 3 p.m. each day, occupying about half the trails until then.

“We are not closed; in fact, we encourage people to come out here,” she said. “It’s just a fun environment in general.”

For those who can’t make it to the slopes, the event will also be broadcast online. Last year’s championship drew nearly 16,000 viewers from around the world.