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  • Besh Cup Series Wraps up in Fairbanks as Team Alaska is Named

    Besh Cup Series Wraps up in Fairbanks as Team Alaska is Named

    Jenna DiFolco (c) of FXC, Abby Amick of APU (l), and Addison Gibson of ANR (r) on the podium for the U18 girls division of the Besh Cup 5 k skate race in Fairbanks, Alaska, Feb. 4, 2017. (Photo: Gavin Kentch)
    Jenna DiFolco (c) of FXC, Abby Amick of APU (l), and Addison Gibson of ANR (r) on the podium for the U18 girls division of the Besh Cup 5 k skate race in Fairbanks, Alaska, Feb. 4, 2017. 

    FAIRBANKS, Alaska — Alaska Airlines operates roughly 10 flights a day between Anchorage and Fairbanks. Last Friday morning many of those flights were packed with skiers, and ski bags piled up at baggage claim in Fairbanks, as Anchorage skiers streamed north for the final weekend of Besh Cup racing to select Alaska’s representatives to next month’s Junior Nationals in Lake Placid, N.Y. Two days later many of those same skiers returned south with plans to fly all the way to Lake Placid, where Team Alaska will have roughly equal representation from the state’s two largest cities.

    The 2016/2017 Besh Cup series concluded with a pair of distance races at Birch Hill ski area: freestyle interval start on Saturday, classic mass start on Sunday. The weather for both days was Fairbanks at its mid-winter best, clear and sunny and relatively warm. Cold powder and hard glide waxes were de rigueur.

    (The emphasis here is on relatively, as national FasterSkier readers might find Saturday’s race-time temperature of 10 degrees Fahrenheit, or Sunday’s reading of 2 degrees, objectively not all that warm. But it was -16 degrees at the airport on Sunday – Birch Hill’s elevated location on a hill above town often keeps it significantly warmer than the low-lying areas of central Fairbanks where official temperature readings are taken – and it is forecast to be -35 degrees in Fairbanks by later this week. So, relatively warm.)

    The first race on Saturday was the boys 10-kilometer freestyle individual start for racers in the U18 division and older, 45 starters in all. The overall podium on Saturday was U18 skier Ti Donaldson of the Nordic Ski Club Fairbanks racing team (FXC), Senior skier Cody Priest of Alaska Nordic Racing (ANR), and U18 skier Josiah Alverts (ANR).

    Among U20 men, FXC skier Benjamin Koenig was first, leading his teammate Logan Mowry in second and Dax Cvancara of ANR in third.

    The U18 boys division, which saw two of the top-three overall finishers, had Donaldson in first, Alverts in second, and APU skier Tristan Wiese in third.

    U16 boys raced a 5 k skate individual start, covering one lap of the blue course that 10 k skiers completed twice. Eli Hermanson of Alaska Winter Stars (AWS) led the all-Anchorage-area podium in the 5 k, followed by George Cvancara of ANR and Zanden McMullen of APU.

    Finally, the U14 boys raced a 1 k skate ski-cross event, with jumps, gates, slaloms, and other technical challenges. The event is a crowd favorite that, race organizers wrote, “helps develop skiers’ abilities to ski in a ‘pack’ along with developing technical skills.” (It may also soon be coming to a race series near you! Here is an example from the 2016 Youth Olympic Games in Lillehammer.) In another Anchorage-area sweep, Aaron Maves of APU took the A-Final, followed by Rudy Schumacher of AWS and Konrad Renner from ANR.

    On the girls side, a field of 57 racers (U16 and older) contested a 5 k skate individual start. At the end of one lap around the blue course, APU skier Maggie York took the overall victory by 40 seconds over FXC skier Jenna DiFolco, with Kendall Kramer (FXC) another 14 seconds back.

    York also topped the U20 podium. She was followed there by Alyeska Daniels and Lupua Oba, both of FXC.

    DiFolco, second overall, was first among U18 girls. Second in this division was Abby Amick of APU, with ANR’s Addison Gibson third.

    U16 girls took third through fifth overall in the combined U16/U18/U20/Masters field for the 5 k (there were no Senior skiers in the race). Locals Kendall Kramer and Kaya Ratzlaff of FXC led this division, with Annika Hanestad (ANR) third.

    U14 girls also raced a 1 k ski cross. First here was Quincy Donley of AWS, continuing her winning ways from the Anchorage and Soldotna Besh Cup weekends. She was followed across the finish line of the A-Final by Marit Flora of APU and Katey Houser of ANR.

    Ti Donaldson of FXC (r) and Josiah Alverts of ANR (l) on the podium for the U18 boys division of the Besh Cup 10 k skate race in Fairbanks, Alaska, Feb. 4, 2017. (Photo: Gavin Kentch)
    Ti Donaldson of FXC (r) and Josiah Alverts of ANR (l) on the podium for the U18 boys division of the Besh Cup 10 k skate race in Fairbanks, Alaska, Feb. 4, 2017. 

    Saturday’s overall winner for the boys race, U18 skier Ti Donaldson, was racing on home turf. “I’ve had a few wins [in the Besh Cup series] in the past,” Donaldson told FasterSkier in an in-person interview following the race. “Most of them have been in Fairbanks. I’m from here, so definitely a home-field advantage.”

    Donaldson came in expecting a “brutal” race, based on his knowledge of the course and his time previewing it. “But I knew it would be pretty fast conditions,” he continued – “it was nice and hard, and it wasn’t too cold. So I was pretty excited to see how it would go, and really just wanted to work the transitions and stay strong on the climbs, and crest over. So I stuck to that plan, and it worked out pretty well.”

    Donaldson was looking forward to 2017 Junior Nationals in March.

    “I’d be thrilled with a top-five finish,” Donaldson said of his goals for next month. “Two years ago, when I was racing the same kids, I placed fourth in a race, and so I’d like to repeat that result. That would be a good goal of mine.”

    Jenna DiFolco, the U18 girls winner and second-place overall skier, was also racing at home. She credited “my FXC coaches” for waxing her winning skis, and had hot cereal for breakfast, with raisins and dried cranberries, at home before heading out to Birch Hill.

    The race was “really fun,” DiFolco recounted in an in-person interview. “Warming up, I didn’t feel so good, I was feeling kind of tired, maybe I’d overdone it this week. And then I expected this course to be really hard, because there are so many hills. And it was definitely, like, it was a rough course. But it went a lot better than I expected it to.”

    DiFolco described her strategy for racing a one-lap 5 k course with nearly constant climbing or descending: “The first part is mostly downhill, so I kind of just started out like a sprint almost, because I knew I’d be able to recover on the downhill. And the first couple of hills I was just trying to keep it light, keep it relaxed, and then really start hammering up South Tower [the high point of the course], because I got a big break after that. And then the last two hills are basically just hard, really hard.”

    Looking ahead to Lake Placid, DiFolco said that she was “hoping to get a couple top-10 finishes.” She added, “A big dream, it’d be a big stretch, but I’m hoping to get, like, a podium would be really, really cool. But top 15, top 10 would be awesome.”

    Sunday saw classic mass starts instead of freestyle individual starts, and temperatures around 10 degrees colder, but otherwise it was more of the same. Seven of eight age-group winners from Saturday picked up a second victory on Sunday, as a pair of distance races rewarded skiers who were consistent in both techniques. (The first two weekends had featured one sprint and one distance race apiece, leading to greater variability in the podium finishers.)

    Sunday’s classic race also rewarded skiers who were good at traditional classic skiing, in light of the relatively slow snow and the impressive elevation change of a Birch Hill race course.

    The trails at Birch Hill are built on the side of, well, a hill (also, there are birch trees). The courses used for this weekend’s races were marked by an impressive Height Difference (the elevation change between the lowest and highest points on the course) of 89 meters within a 5-kilometer course. The World Cup skiathlon race that was contested in South Korea the same weekend, on the trails that will be used for the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, featured height differences of only 58 and 41 meters on the two skiathlon courses.

    In fact, a height difference of 89 meters is a greater elevation spread than was present on most of the traditional World Cup courses this season, including in Davos (84m), Lillehammer (74m), Falun (69m), and Ulricehamn (57m). That said, some of those courses had more average climb per kilometer than the Birch Hill 5 k course. But only some of them. This may help explain why the winning time for a 10 k skate on Saturday was 29:22 for the men, and 16:15 for 5 k for the women, in a race with some of the top junior skiers in the country. (Winning times for Sunday’s 10 k classic races were 32:17 and 37:53.)

    Coaches compete in the final ski-cross heat of the day, the coaches' race, on Feb. 4 in Fairbanks, Alaska. Racers include Galen Johnston (129), Eric Strabel (125), Anson Moxness (126), and Pete Leonard (101). (Courtesy photo)
    Coaches compete in the final ski-cross heat of the day, the coaches’ race, on Feb. 4 in Fairbanks, Alaska. Racers include Galen Johnston (129), Eric Strabel (125), Anson Moxness (126), and Pete Leonard (101). (Courtesy photo)

    APU Devo and Master Coach Galen Johnston shared his thoughts on the effects of such a course profile after spending the weekend watching his athletes race up and down these hills. “One of the best parts of the weekend was to see how the combination of slow snow and lots of strideable sustained climbing put the focus of the [classic] races on striding and fitness rather than simply double pole strength,” Johnston wrote to FasterSkier on Monday.

    “Courses designed like this can keep striding a viable, and even necessary part of classic skiing,” Johnston continued by email. “Birch Hill has some of the most progressive course designs that I’ve seen and it’s paying off. Skiers ski differently than they did even 10 years ago, and it’s really neat to see a course that can accommodate and challenge that change in style without turning things into an unskiable death march. Estle is keeping people very honest, but still allowing for ample fun,” Johnston concluded in reference to longtime Fairbanks race director and ski-course designer (and former U.S. Ski Team coach) John Estle.

    On Sunday the best strider was DiFolco, who took first place in the 10 k classic mass start race by 19 seconds over Saturday’s winner York. Third overall was ANR skier Heidi Booher (ANR), another 23 seconds back.

    York was again first in the U20 women division. The rest of the podium was also unchanged from Saturday, with Daniels in second and Oba in third.

    DiFolco was again first among U18 girls. Second on Sunday was Booher, with Emma Nelson of ANR third.

    There was a substantial drop-off in distance from U18 girls to U16 girls, with the latter group racing not 10 k but a 3 k classic mass start. First after just under 10 chaotic minutes was Kramer again, edging out her FXC teammate Ratzlaff by 0.7 seconds. Tjarn Bross rounded out the all-FXC podium in third.

    U14 girls raced the same 3 k course as the U16 girls. And after 11 to 12 minutes of racing, it was precisely the same U14 girls podium as on Saturday: Donley, Flora, and Houser.

    On the boys side, U18/U20/Senior/Masters skiers raced a 10 k classic mass start on the same course as the girls. First overall was Lukash Platil (officially unaffiliated, but listed on the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) ski team roster), followed by Donaldson of FXC and Wiese of APU.

    Platil was also first in the Senior men’s division. He was followed there by Kenny Brewer (now unaffiliated, formerly of UAF) and Matt Muffoletto (The Other Guys).

    Among the U20 men, Koenig picked up his second first place of the weekend, and Mowry his second second place. Hamish Wolfe (APU) was third.

    Donaldson and Wiese led the U18 boys. They were followed by Alverts, as the age group podium remained largely unchanged from Saturday.

    The U16 boys raced a 3 k classic mass start. This was the only age group to see a new winner on Sunday, as Cvancara moved up from second the day before to nudge Hermanson down a step on the podium. Everett Cason of APU was third.

    And the U14 boys (also 3 k classic) were again an all-Anchorage affair: Maves once again in first, Rowan Morse (APU) in second, and Schumacher in third.

    Later Sunday afternoon a crowd gathered in the Birch Hill Recreation Center, ignoring Super Bowl LI then in progress, for the naming of Team Alaska for this year’s Junior Nationals (JNs).

    The Besh Cup Trophy, photographed in Fairbanks, Alaska, in February 2017. (Photo: Gavin Kentch)
    The Besh Cup Trophy, photographed in Fairbanks, Alaska, in February 2017. 

    Cross Country Alaska also awarded the Besh Cup Trophy, given to the U18 or U20 skier with the greatest number of JN qualifying points across all six races combined. This year’s winners were Josiah Alverts for the boys and Jenna DiFolco for the girls. Their names will be added to a trophy, Stanley Cup-style, that includes on its plinth recognizable names from American skiing such as David Norris, Becca Rorabaugh, Reese Hanneman, Andy Liebner, Zach Hall, Eric Strabel, Kate Pearson, and Rob Whitney.

    While winning the Besh Cup Trophy is undeniably prestigious, it also necessarily rewards the best skier who was in Alaska all winter for the races, as opposed to competing Outside or internationally. For example, among U18/U20 girls, you may have heard that the University of Alaska Anchorage’s Hailey Swirbul was racing in Soldier Hollow, while Molly Gellert was on the Scandinavian Cup trip in Norway.

    DiFolco graciously acknowledged as much, telling FasterSkier on Sunday soon after receiving the trophy, “I think some of the fastest skiers are not here, because they pre-qualified [for JNs] and they went on big trips.” But DiFolco still skied the races and earned the results, including two firsts and two seconds in the final four races of the series.

    “It’s pretty cool,” DiFolco said of the season-long honor. “I never would have really expected this to happen a year ago. … I’m pretty proud of it. I’m happy with it.”

    Shortly after the awards ceremony ended the migration began to repeat itself in reverse, as out-of-town skiers loaded up cars in the Birch Hill parking lot for the 7-hour drive south to Anchorage or paraded ski bags through the Fairbanks airport. The flight home for Anchorage skiers was marked by ski hats, team jackets, and quiet chatter, as athletes talked about next month’s trip to the East Coast and parents fretted about missed school days and makeup work.

    Junior Nationals begin in Lake Placid in early March. The first race is a 5/10 k freestyle individual start on March 6.

    Results: skate interval start | classic mass start | overall points lists

    ***

    FasterSkier is seeking contributions (written, photography or videography) from regional race circuits across North America. Please email info@fasterskier.com if interested.

  • Skiers Battle Warming Temps, Melting River Ice in Fairbanks’ Sonot Kkaazoot

    Skiers Battle Warming Temps, Melting River Ice in Fairbanks’ Sonot Kkaazoot

    FAIRBANKS, Alaska – As Mike Campbell famously said in The Sun Also Rises, he went bankrupt two ways: “Gradually and then suddenly.” Alaskan breakup – the season known as “spring” in other parts of the world – proceeds much the same way.

    A field of nearly 300 skiers experienced a little of both in the Sonot Kkaazoot family of races, held last Saturday, March 26, in Fairbanks, Alaska. At the end of the day, Fairbanks skier Rebecca Konieczny and Anchorage skier Seiji Takagi came away victorious in the flagship 50-kilometer skate races. But the real victory may have been that the races were held at all.

    Sonot kkaazoot comes from the Athabaskan (indigenous language group) words for “springtime” and “to slide your feet across the snow.” The race with this name has been held in Fairbanks on the last weekend in March every year since 1988. Reflecting the cold winter temperatures of Interior Alaska, as well as Fairbanks’s location at 65° N latitude, the race has never been canceled despite this late date (although the course has occasionally been modified).

    Traditionally, the race starts on the Chena River in the heart of downtown Fairbanks, travels 10 k east along the river, proceeds inland to Birch Hill Recreation Area, spends 30 k covering most of the trails in the renowned trail system, and then returns to the river to finish 10 k west in central Fairbanks. The 2016 race covered this full course. Barely.

    A field of 106 racers started the combined 40 k and 50 k races at 10 a.m. The first water hazard came approximately 300 meters into the race, as the field had to negotiate overflow several inches deep (the video shows the 20 k start). Once past the water crossing, a lead pack of a dozen racers quickly formed, including five skiers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), five skiers from Alaska Pacific University (APU), and two junior skiers from Fairbanks’s West Valley High School.

    Takagi, a sophomore skier for UAF, set an honest pace from the start.

    “I know a lot of these guys will be mad at me for doing that but I kind of like doing that in mass starts, going out a little fast and then kind of settling,” Takagi told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner in an in-person interview after the race.

    Takagi led for much of the initial 10 k down the river, occasionally trading off the lead with other skiers. Despite his desire to push the pace, the lead pack remained intact 10 kilometers and approximately 25 minutes into the race, as all 12 skiers who had made the initial break continued to ski in a pack.

    Shortly after leaving the river, the race course proceeds to the base of the Ft. Wainwright downhill ski area, then takes a series of switchbacks to the top of the alpine hill.

    Takagi put in a surge immediately upon reaching the base of the hill.

    “I just worked on trying to open that gap after that and maintaining it,” Takagi told News-Miner. Although his energy flagged considerably over the remaining 39 kilometers – “I had about less than 10 percent left, negative 10 percent left” by the finish, Takagi later said – he skied relatively unchallenged to the end. He would finish first by over two minutes in 2:20:30.2, taking the victory in his first time racing the Sonot.

    Behind him, there was heated competition for the remaining podium spots.

    “Soon after we started up the downhill resort the pace increased,” wrote eventual third-place finisher Fischer Gangemi of Takagi’s move. “As we rounded the first corner [going uphill] I could see Seiji already making a gap.”

    APU skier Andre Lovett, who would eventually finish fourth, tried to stick with Takagi. Two chase packs formed behind the leaders. Gangemi eventually bridged the gap to Andre Lovett and the two 40 k racers.

    “By that point,” he wrote, “Seiji had a considerable lead but we could still see him.”

    The next time Gangemi saw Takagi, he was at least 2 ½ minutes back of the UAF skier. Gangemi skied alone for some time, until he was eventually caught by UAF skier Nick Lovett (no relation to Andre).

    “We skied together [through Birch Hill, back to the river, and] all the way until the last 1 kilometer mark,” Gangemi wrote, “trading drafts regularly in the very hard push down the river and around the overflow. Both of us tried to make futile pushes a couple times. Finally Nick had much more gas in the last kilometer and slowly gapped me to the finish.”

    Nick Lovett finished second in 2:22:34.5, 2:04 back from Takagi. Gangemi was third in 2:22:45.0, roughly ten seconds behind. Andre Lovett came in fourth, nearly three minutes later.

    The top nine men’s finishers were split between UAF and APU, with five members of the UAF ski team and four from the APU university and masters teams. (The APU Elite Team was busy contesting its own slushy 50 k in Craftsbury.)

    (Story continues below)

    While Takagi skied away early for the solo win in the men’s race, the women’s race featured heated competition throughout. In a battle between UAF past and present, UAF past took the narrow victory. After 50 kilometers of head to head racing, Konieczny, a former Nanooks skier who now coaches for the Nordic Ski Club of Fairbanks, finished first in 2:42:00.7. Ann-Cathrin Uhl, a sophomore skier for the Nanooks from Mühlenbach, Germany, crossed the line less than six seconds back in 2:42:06.6. Third place went to Anchorage’s Sarah Freistone, who finished roughly eight minutes later in 2:50:07.4.

    Konieczny won the race for the third year in a row, but was thrilled to have some competition, and some company, this time. “I actually want to thank Ann Uhl,” Konieczny told the News-Miner. “Usually I follow the men for 20 k-ish, not even, and then I have to ski the whole race by myself. So it was really fun to ski with her and go back and forth.”

    Konieczny added, “I was excited to ski with a couple of the UAF ladies. Thought it would make it a little more fun for me.”

    Although Freistone finished some distance off the podium, she hardly had to ski by herself.

    “Throughout the race I was skiing in small packs of people,” she wrote in an email. “Whenever I felt the pack I was with was slowing down or if I thought I could go faster, I tried to make a move to the next group of people.”

    Freistone also had a personal source of motivation: “I was also trying really hard to catch my mom before the finish,” she wrote. “That kept me motivated when the skiing got rough and slow. She competed in the 40k and finished about a minute in front of me.”

    In the day’s other races, Maria Bray won the 40 k for the women in 2:21:21.7, with Jenna DiFolco second and Alyeska Daniels third. Local high school skiers Ti Donaldson and Benjamin Koenig were first and second in the men’s 40 k, with Donaldson setting a winning time of 1:52:29.3. Pete Leonard was third.

    Kaya Ratzlaff was fastest in the women’s 20 k, with Emma Jerome second and Anna Rix third. Mike Kramer, Jonathan Burrell and Jacob Moos were the top three in the men’s 20 k.

    Lynne Petersen was the winner, and only entrant, in the women’s 50 k classic race. Daniel Serventi won the men’s 50 k classic in an impressive 2:49:48.1 solo effort, with Bill Husby and Owen Hanley second and third.

    All skiers in all races had to contend with conditions that may charitably be described as variable. Fairbanks began experiencing a dramatic springtime freeze–thaw cycle somewhat earlier than normal this March. Temperatures on the Birch Hill section of the course were never lower than 36 degrees Fahrenheit during race grooming the night before, and were still as high as 52 degrees at 2 a.m., eight hours before the 10 a.m. start. They then fell to slightly below freezing by 6 a.m.

    Between the springtime conditions, the initial 10 k on the river, the groomed trails at Birch Hill, and the final 10 k back on the river, plus temperatures that climbed at least 15 degrees during the race, racers encountered a range of conditions. There was standing water, flowing water, sheet ice, bulletproof crust, melting snow, dirty snow, perfect midwinter corduroy, and what appeared to be midwinter corduroy but was in fact soft and painfully slow groomed snow. Then came the final 10 k on the river, when the sun came out, the morning’s ice broke down into slush, and even the top finishers faced a grinding trip to the end.

    Strategies for dealing with the range of conditions varied. One racer was heard muttering at the finish that he literally would have saved time had he skied with a Structurite tool in his water belt the entire way, then stopped before returning to the river to quickly hand-structure his skis.

    For her part, women’s winner Konieczny told the News-Miner, “My skis were fast when the conditions were right for it but then up at Birch Hill, especially, it got really really soft. It made it actually more interesting too because you had to be more tactical and find spots to pass.”

    Gangemi, who was on eponymous RCS Plus skis, was slightly less sanguine. He reported that he waxed with Holmenkol Betamix Red, plus “whatever structure tool Mike Hajdukovich from Trax [Outdoor Center] made available.” He added, “I think I should have used a graphite wax as well to improve the durability because it seemed they became slower as the race progressed not just because of variable conditions and fatigue.”

    The challenging conditions were reflected in the finishing times. Konieczny was more than 18 minutes off her course-record time of 2:23:40 from 2015. Takagi, similarly, was over eight minutes slower than last year, when APU skier Jack Novak won in 2:12:10.

    Three-time winner Konieczny was not the only frequent contender. Second-place skier Uhl had finished only one second off the podium in the Oosik Classic 50 k the weekend before. Third-place finisher Freistone was also third in the 2015 Sonot Kkaazoot, first in the Kachemak Nordic Ski Marathon earlier this month, and first in this winter’s season-long Anchorage Cup series. Among the men, Nick Lovett was third and Takagi fifth in last weekend’s Oosik, while Gangemi won the Kachemak Marathon.

    But the real story of the 2016 Sonot Kkaazoot was the weather. Despite race organizers’ assiduous attention to ice conditions in the days leading up to the race, including drilling at several sites to check for ice thickness near the start and delaying a final decision on whether or not to ski on the river until the morning of the race, everyone was surprised when a small portion of the Chena River experienced breakup during the race.

    (Story continues below)

    Overflow on the surface of the Chena River, following a partial breakup of the Chena River in Fairbanks, Alaska, on March 26, 2016. The groomed trail originally went through the foreground of this picture. Two skiers can be seen in the background safely detouring around the overflow on the established detour route. (Photo: Stella Wisner)
    Overflow on the surface of the Chena River, following a partial breakup of the Chena River in Fairbanks, Alaska, on March 26, 2016. The groomed trail originally went through the foreground of this picture. Two skiers can be seen in the background safely detouring around the overflow on the established detour route.
    (Photo: Stella Wisner)

    A relatively small piece of ice went out at some point while the lead 50 k skiers were traversing Birch Hill. The Chena River promptly began flowing over the ice for a stretch of several hundred meters. While skiers had blithely skied down the groomed river trail earlier in the race, on their return they were met with a lengthy stretch of overflow.

    No one was injured. A detour route was quickly established, requiring returning skiers to head inland for approximately 100 meters, traverse around the farthest reaches of the overflow, step up on to some shore-fast river ice along the bank, duck under some alders, and return to the established race course on the far side of the overflow. (Two skiers can be seen on the detour route in the above picture.)

    In a blog post on the race website, race organizers wrote, “Huge thanks to David Frey, nordic ski coach at Tanana Middle School who alerted Sonot Kkaazoot officials of the major disruption of the Sonot Kkaazoot trail on the river and provided standby guides around the hazardous area until Sonot volunteers could set up an alternative course.” (Organizers declined further comment on the breakup incident.)

    As the race director told skiers in his pre-race remarks, imploring them to stay on the set course, “If you go off the course, you may die.” It appears he may have been correct.

    Or, as third-place finisher Sarah Freistone observed in an email, “I was really happy with how my race went this year despite the tough conditions.” She added, “I have never really worried about falling into a river in a ski race before, but I guess there’s a first for everything.”

    Complete results

    The reporter would like to thank local skier Max Kaufman for his sterling hospitality all weekend long, as well as for taking all the racer pictures in this story.

    About the Author: Gavin Kentch lives in Anchorage.  He skis with the Alaska Pacific University Masters team, plays with his two adorable daughters, and occasionally works as a solo attorney.  He was probably on snow this year before you were.