LEBANON — Paisley Rancourt, an incoming Lebanon High School freshman, is taking to the air this month as she participates in USA Ski Jumping’s Fly Camp in Steamboat Springs, Colo.

The camp, which began on July 1, offers jumpers ages 13 to 17 an opportunity to take part in a national-level camp, where selected athletes “gain valuable experience and connections while pushing their limits alongside some of the country’s best young ski jumpers and Nordic combined athletes,” states USA Ski Jumping’s website.

“So many kids I know have gone to this camp and really just excelled at jumping,” Paisley, 14, said before she headed off to Colorado. “This is said to be the camp that all of the kids really figure it out.”

USA Ski Jumping selects athletes based on several criteria, including an athlete's participation in local, regional and national events, their focus on pursuing ski jumping or Nordic combined for the long term, as well as their positivity and enthusiasm as a person and teammate.

The camp, which ends Saturday, offers individualized coaching, technique drills, video analysis and jumping competitions.

“It’s such an incredible opportunity, and I’ve been hearing about this camp since the first year that I started ski jumping,” she said.

Ski jumping runs in Paisley’s family, starting with her grandfather, Phil Rancourt, in the early 1970s.

Paisley’s interest in the sport was partly inspired by watching meets at Harris Hill in Brattleboro. Those competitions drew thousands of spectators and a number of international jumpers.

At age 10, Paisley told her father, Will Rancourt, that she wanted to give it a try. The elder Rancourt tried ski jumping himself when he was a kid.

“I tried it out and from then on I really enjoyed it, and I started jumping that first year, and then after that I just kept going,” she said.

At age 11, Paisley was introduced to Nordic skiing through Lebanon’s middle and high school program, which then opened the door to Nordic combined.

Nordic combined unites ski jumping and cross country skiing, where a competitor's result in the ski jump impacts their start in the cross country portion of the event.

“If you’re a good ski jumper and a good Nordic athlete, you can really excel at Nordic combined because of the way they do it,” said Paisley.

Initially, Paisley jumped with the Lebanon Outing Club, but after the 25-meter hill at the club was removed, she moved to the Andover (N.H.) Outing Club.

In her young career, Paisley has reached vast heights, figuratively and literally. Not only has she jumped on hills of various sizes, but her progress has led to her being named to the Eastern Division Junior National Ski Jumping and Nordic Combined Team for the last two years.

Those honors earned her the chance to compete in Alaska and Utah. In February, Paisley — alongside teammate Caroline Chor, of Hanover — finished in second place in the Team Nordic Combined Relay in Utah.

Paisley has taken advantage of other opportunities to hone her skills. She participated in the New York Ski Educational Foundation, or NYSEF, winter term last winter, which allowed her to train at the Olympic Ski Jumping Complex and study in Lake Placid, N.Y., for two months.

Paisley left Lebanon Middle School for a trimester and was essentially homeschooled, her father said.

His daughter’s Lebanon teachers “kind of gave us a plan,” Rancourt said. “They were really supportive, and we really couldn’t do it without the support of the Lebanon School District.”

With the Colorado camp, Paisley said she was looking forward to experiencing something new and learning from more coaches, emphasizing that ski jumping is a mental sport.

“You work so hard for so long — you get to a point where it’s mainly just one last mental thing that you need to work through and then you’re there — you’ve gotten to a point where you can really start to take more chances on the hill and move up to bigger hills and stuff like that,” she said.

Will Rancourt compared the mental aspects of the sport to golf. “You can do the right thing one time and you can nail a takeoff and get in the flight position and you’re like, ‘That’s how it’s supposed to feel.” And then the next minute, you can do one tiny, minute thing and you’re back to square one again,” he said.

While Rancourt is a certified ski jumping coach, he stopped short of calling himself Paisley’s coach. He calls himself her “champion,” driving her to meets and standing on the side of the hills when she competes.

Larry Stone, a NYSEF ski jumping coach and Paisley’s summer coach, lauded Paisley for her work ethic and physical strength and expressing enthusiasm for her participation in the camp.

“It’s always good to train with a good group of jumpers,” Stone said. “You’re only as good as the people you jump with.”

Before Paisley set off to navigate the hills in Colorado, she acknowledged she has bigger goals for the future, such as making the national team and eventually advancing to the World Cup circuit.

“I’ve been really close for the past six months to really getting to where I want to be at the moment with my skills,” she said. “I am really hoping this camp will put me right where I need to be.”

Michael Coughlin Jr. can be reached at mcoughlin@vnews.com.