Skimo Racing

The following report was submitted by our East Coast SkinTrack correspondent Jonathan Shefftz.
“Is Burke cold?,” I asked about three decades ago of a visiting junior race coach from Burke Mountain Academy.  “Burke is *always* cold!” he replied with a perverse pride, and hence this northern outpost of New England skiing has intimidated me ever since I was a teenager.
With the postponement of the Mad River Valley VT race to February 23, Eastern rando racing action shifted north from Berkshire East MA on January 26 to Burke Mountain VT on February 9 – except that most of the racers came south from Quebec!  Such northerners were probably not intimidated by the rather dire weather forecast, but fortunately for all of us the sun came out and the winds stayed away, so the cold single-digit Fahrenheit temperatures at the start were quite nice for racing.  Perhaps not so warm for the many volunteers who had to stand around staffing the course, but they still put on some good cheer while helping out us racers, or at least perhaps even frigid volunteers just seem more cheery than hypoxic racers?

How it all went down

» Full Results Burke 2014 (PDF)
A Le Mans start at the lower base area had us successfully out-racing an adjacent beginner Poma lift for some encouragement . . . as long as we ignored the high-speed quad on the other side of the initial ascent!  On the upper mountain, the pitch steepened to far more than ideal for those with only low-height heel elevators on our race bindings, yet it was still reasonable, especially with the perfectly groomed snow.  The first descent was mainly a fast groomer, interrupted by one tricky bumped-up section to keep us honest.
We then lashed skis to packs for a long boot up, the first half of which may be changed to a skintrack for next year, although the second half had some suitably challenging sections.  (Foreshadowing warning!)  Yet another high-speed quad flew overhead, although fortunately the chair riders were nice enough to shout encouragement to us.  Then after switching to skins for the final segment on the second ascent, we traversed out to the ski area’s periphery for a very long ungroomed descent on natural snow.  No single section was especially challenging, but the bumps just kept coming and coming, with no respite, followed by a runout that taxed us with skating and poling.
Finally, we again ascended the first part of the bootpack for a relatively short ungroomed descent.  Total vertical on the altimeter watch was 4,410 feet of gain.
Competitively this had to be the strongest field ever for an Eastern rando race, with only a nine-minute spread among the top seven finishers, anchored unfortunately by your faithful correspondent.  The only other non-Quebecois in the top seven was Josh Flanagan.  (Ironically, the two winners from Berkshire East who were unable to attend both would have felt somewhat at home among all these French Canadians:  Jerimy Arnold is a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen, and Nina Silitch returned only several months ago from many years in France with her family.)
Josh briefly took the lead on the second ascent when George Visser fell and slide about ten feet on the bootpack.  Yet then Josh bent and subsequently snapped a ski pole just before the second descent, slowing him down considerably.  Meanwhile, George regained and held the lead by absolutely bombing the descent in a manner that stunned anyone lucky enough to be close enough to see it.  Phillipe Deguire slipped into second when Josh lost time on a transition to fall into third.
Only a minute off the podium was Daniel Poirier, followed another two minutes later by Leigh Quilliams, and then less than two minutes after that by Quebec Dynafit rep Jeff Rivest.  Demos and prizes were available from Jeff and the newly appointed Eastern U.S. Dynafit rep Peter Cahill.  Jeff also appeared to have outfitted all of Equipe Quebec with his sales samples:  North America has probably never before seen such a concentration of not only Dynafit ski gear but also Dynafit packs and clothing, as the Dynafit Snow Leopard stared down its competitors (though Team Hagan still snuck in for three of the top seven finishers, plus the women’s winner Danielle Deguire).
Many thanks to Burke Mountain Resort for hosting, NorthWoods Stewardship Center for organizing, and Dynafit for supporting.  This venue is a very welcome and challenging addition to the Eastern skimo scene, and we were all very encouraged by how well the race went given its first year of such an expansive layout.
Looking ahead, on February 23 the Mad River Valley race (postponed from its originally scheduled February 2 date) will skin up Mad River Glen and then along the Long Trail ridgeline hiking trail to descend Sugarbush’s Mount Ellen area, and from there will connect through the Slidebrook backcountry area to Sugarbush’s Lincoln Peak area.  (Unfortunately your faithful correspondent will be unable to attempt to defend his 2011 and 2012 titles on account of a family ski trip to the Mount Washington Hotel, where skimo training activities will include picking up our daughter and her cousin repeatedly on the nordic ski trails, running after little girls down “The Shining”-inspiring hallways, skinning up the downhill resort . . . and actual genuine ski mountaineering on Mount Washington!)
Looking even further ahead, conditions permitting (looking great now!), on March 2 Mount Greylock MA will host the first-ever 100-percent backcountry Eastern rando race, with about 6,000 feet of vertical for the full course.  More details on that to follow as we get closer to the date . . .