Coloradans competing on US Ski Mountaineering team
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- Created on Wednesday, 02 February 2011 15:02
- Written by Dena Rosenberry
The Winter X Games are finished for another year, but extreme sports of another type are hardly over for two Aspenites.
Jessica Phillips and Max Taam were named recently to the U.S. Ski Mountaineering Team that will compete in the World Championships in Claut, Italy, Feb. 18-25.
The sport is catching fire in the U.S., Taam said, and it's already popular in Europe.
Ski mountaineering races are brutal affairs that sear the lungs, sap the legs and test the endurance of the athletes.
Racers alternate between climbing uphill with skins on their skis and skiing down gnarly slopes on lightweight gear.
A typical race has three or four uphill stretches, each interspersed with a run down a steep trail. They cover between 4,500 and 6,000 feet of climbing, Taam said, but some races feature up to 8,000 vertical feet of grueling climbs.
Most races take between two and three hours.
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