It’s that time of year where families around the country look
longingly at the empty chair across the Thanksgiving dinner table and curse the
gods as to why their cross-country skier of the family must be absent from such
an occasion. For every Thanksgiving, skiers everywhere make the pilgrimage to
the season opener races in West Yellowstone, Montana.
Over the summer, West Yellowstone is a vibrant tourist trap
on the north-western fringes of Yellowstone National Park, known for its budget
T-shirt shops and sales tax. In the winter however, the town almost shuts down
completely, with main street boarded up for the season and only the occasional
snow-machines and service vehicles for traffic. During this one week in
November, West Yellowstone belongs to the Nordic skiers.
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| The trailhead. Spirited and busy |
This was my third such pilgrimage to West for the
Thanksgiving SuperTours, and my first as an official roster member of the
Montana State Ski Team. These races hold a special significance this year for
me because while I am officially on
the MSU team, only 5 out of the current 8 males are permitted to make the
travelling NCAA team for the rest of the season.
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| Day I in West Yellowstone. The view from our room |
To make matters complicated, we arrived on Monday to 37
degrees and rain. Soon after it was determined that there was not sufficient
snowfall to hold the races in West Yellowstone, and the venue was moved to the ‘South
Plateau,’ which is a 30 minute drive on a single-lane forest service road and
about 1000 feet higher in elevation from the original venue. Despite the hassle
to get to snow every morning and evening to ski, the trails were excellent and
spirits were high among the team and the hundreds of other skiers forced to
share a single trail with each other. The only downside to the week was that the biathlon race I was to race in was cancelled.
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| Skiing in the rain with Andrew. Good times. |
My brother Andrew was in West this year for the races, and
it was great to get out and put some quality skiing in with him. The first race
was Friday, and the course was a point-to-point hill-climb style race on a
closed trail, which meant no spectators or support staff. I liked the idea of
no one on the trail but myself and my ski ability. The course was fast glazed
snow and I was able to send it. After deliberating with my brother about
strategy and how I would best go about hauling my 200 pound self along an
uphill course for 10 kilometers, I was confident and smart about my racing the
whole way through. I took a nasty crash into the woods on the ONLY technical
turn in the race, but got up as fast as I could and skied even more ferociously
after that.
Although it was my best effort and I shaved off minutes
compared to my time trial earlier in the week on the same course, I came up
short of the ‘top-5’ cutoff for the MSU travelling team. It’s always been a
dream of mine to toe up to the line against my brother in a college race, and I
still have two more races next week to prove myself worthy of that experience
before they make the official team selection. I am confident I can improve.
Andrew did incredibly well, placing 5th overall,
which gives him a great chance of making the U.S. World Cup team in Canmore,
Alberta. I’m incredibly proud. We celebrated with pizza.
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| The booth at the Expo |
There was plenty more than ski racing going on at the Ski
Festival, including the annual Ski Expo, most known for the ski-brand booths displaying
their latest technology and the triumphant teenagers with armfuls of stickers
and other miscellaneous swag that would trample a small child in order to be
the first person to get a Madschus poster. I would most closely relate it to
the ski-equivalent of Black Friday. Biathlon Elite co-hosted a booth at the
expo with Altius Firearms, and I got to meet a lot of prospective biathletes
and sponsors. It was great publicity, and I have to thank Altius and Jack Hart
of Swix/Patagonia for making the booth possible for us.
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| Climbing to the end of the Plateau |
On our last day in West, the team went on a distance ski to
the end of the grooming on the Plateau. We climbed and climbed, and the higher
we went the better the skiing became. I was in heaven, and once we reached the
end of the trail, we overlooked the westernmost part of Montana into Idaho and
Wyoming. There were spooky charred trees from a recent forest fire poking out
of the snow, and everything was black and white. It was one of the most amazing
skis I’ve had in a long while.
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| The end of the trail. Overlooking three states |
And now I’m back in student-mode in Bozeman, eagerly
awaiting the next weekend of skiing and ski-racing. Cheers.
