Ski mountaineering races step up
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- Created on Wednesday, 20 April 2011 17:10
- Written by Dave Philipps
By DAVE PHILIPPS, THE GAZETTE
BRECKENRIDGE • The first skiers topped the wind-whipped ridge of Peak 8 at 12,800 feet an hour before the lifts opened. Clad in tight wind suits and wearing ultralight gear, they had left the base before dawn, climbing for miles under their own steam until they stood looking down at the empty slopes glazed in the amber light of dawn.
The point wasn’t to get first tracks, but simply to get first.
It was the day of the Five Peaks Ski Mountaineering Race — one of the biggest local events in the fast-growing sport of Ski Mountaineering, which combines the beauty of the mountains and the thrill of downhill skiing with the aerobic demands of climbing the Incline. Seventy-two racers had signed up to climb and descend three peaks for a total of 8,650 vertical feet of gain.
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“It’s brutal. It pushes you farther than you think you can go,” said Scotte Radek, a tall, sinewy racer from Dillon who finished the race in about five hours. “I can’t think of any better way to stay in shape in the winter.”
Racers gained the ridge and headed for the summit of Peak 8. They had already climbed Peak 9 in the pre-dawn darkness. After a harrowing descent over wind-crusted snow, they boot-packed up a dizzyingly steep couloir to gain the Peak 8 ridge. On the ridge, the leaders practically jogged to the 12,980-foot summit, only to pull their climbing skins off and plunge down again to climb Peak 7.
In the tradition of ski mountaineering — or skimo as it is increasingly called — competitors tore down the slopes in teams of two. The winners finished in 3 hours, 36 minutes, but the average finishing time was closer to five hours.
Five Peaks is one of nine races in the Colorado Ski Mountaineering Cup (COSMIC), which, since 2006, has organized races at an increasing number of Colorado ski resorts.
“The sport is relatively new here. It has not exploded, but interest is growing,” said Pete Swenson, the organizer of the series.
A longtime fan, Swenson went to Europe to compete in races in the early 2000s and fell in love.
“It was so cool,” he said. “But back in the states we only had two or three races and no one really doing it at a high level. Someone needed to step up and organize it.”
So Swenson did. He started the COSMIC series with a handful of races and a Colorado population that knew little about the sport.
Many showed up at races with heavy telemark skis — the equivalent of bringing an old Schwinn to the Tour de France.
“They did not have much of a choice,” said Swenson. “A lot of the light, fast gear — you could not buy it in the United States.”
Since then, locals have been catching up. Now it is not unusual to see a dozen teams at a COSMIC race with all the best European race gear.
The history of ski mountaineering may be short in the Rockies, but it is long in the Alps. It traces its start to the 1800s, when teams of soldiers in France, Italy, Switzerland and Germany patrolled the mountainous boarders of the Alps on skis, often having to climb and descend mountain after mountain.
As a training tool, commanders soon began organizing competitions that included climbing, skiing and shooting, always in pairs. They called the races “military patrols.” Remnants of these military origins can still be seen in the name one of Switzerland’s biggest races, the Patrouilles Des Glaciers, or “Glacier Patrol,” organized by the Swiss army.
Civilian races sprang up in the Alps in the 1920s, and combined ski mountaineering and shooting was an official event at the 1924 Olympics in Chamonix, France.
Though Skimo never became a big Olympic sport, it continued to gain ground in Europe, minus the rifles.
By the 1970s the Alps had a slew of races from morning amateur runs to multi-day pro stage tours, and an International Ski Mountaineering Federation to officiate.
Competition in the sport has bred a new line of ski gear focused on fast and light. Skiers wear special backpacks that allow them to stow their skis on steep uphills without taking off their packs. They use super-light mohair climbing skins and a technique of quickly taking them off without removing their skis.
A top skimo setup — boots, poles, skis, bindings — often weighs significantly less than just the boots of a typical downhill skier. Design is minimal and relies heavily on titanium and carbon fiber.
“They ski like a wet noodle, but they feel nice on the way up,” said Duke Barlow, a ski patroller doing the Five Peaks race on his day off.
The high-tech, weight-saving designs come at a price; top-of-the-line boots and skis run $1,000 each.
Shooting downhill on these feather-weight skis is not exactly graceful. There are no gates to slalom in skimo. Racers tend to just point their tips and go for maximum speed. Often they revert to a beginner’s stance: knees wide apart and bent, arms out and tensed, body slightly hunched — the type of pose a person naturally takes when they expect at any moment to eat dirt.
And, at the Five Peaks race, a number of skiers did. One especially unlucky racer lost his ski in a tumble, and since there was no brake (brakes cost grams), the ski went shooting down into the woods, never to be seen again.
Others kept slogging through four big climbs and fast descents.
Radek, who has skied a number of the races in the growing COSMIC series, said the sport tends to attract “the same freaky clan of aerobic nuts” who show up at big mountain bike and trail-running races — the powerful-lung set who love getting out into the thin mountain air.
As for Radek, he said he just appreciated something to get him out during the long winters when trails in the mountains are often deep in snow. “Plus,” he said. “It makes the beer taste better afterwards.”
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