From the FasterSkier archive — posts syndicated from athletes’ and coaches’ own blogs between 2004 and 2012, kept online as published. Current coverage is at fasterskier.com.
Job Opening: Event director for the 2016 Equinox Ski Challenge.
Event Description: The Equinox Ski Challenge is a Nordic ski event that has been held since 2007 in West Yellowstone, MT. The race is open to skiers of all ages and abilities and has 3, 6, 12, and 24 Hour divisions which all can be entered by soloists or relay teams. The event was founded on commitments to contributing to the local community, challenging participants physically and also having a high level of camaraderie between all participants. Every year, the event donates food and funds to several local organizations, sees numerous personal records set, and has an all night potluck/bonfire with lots of laughter. The event has attracted more participants each year, with 120 skiers attending skiers in 2014 and continually receives praise for its unique atmosphere. The Equinox Ski Challenge is the only 24 Hour Nordic race in the Rocky Mountain region and one of only two such events in North America. More information including the mission of the event can be found on the event website at www.equinoxsnowchallenge.com
Location: The event is held in West Yellowstone, Montana. The job can be done remotely with a few visits to West Yellowstone. Being active in the West Yellowstone community on a regular basis is very advantageous.
Time commitment: 5 hours per week in Oct-Dec. 10-15 hours per week Jan-April.
Dates: October 1, 2015 to April 15, 2016. Event is scheduled for March 19 and 20, 2016.
Responsibilities:
35% Race production including registration, course marking, timing, awards.
30% Arrange sponsorship agreements and collect donations from sponsors.
20% Print and distribute registration and promotional material.
5% Maintain event website.
5% Coordinate event volunteers.
Benefits: The real benefits are seeing racers smiling after skiing farther than they ever have or harder then they ever have, seeing the Food Bank pick up their annual donation we collect, seeing kids enjoy a ski race and seeing participants face themselves on the race course and then chat with each other around the bonfire about what it was like.
Pay depends on experience and will include a base rate plus a percentage of the net income.
Application Due Date: August 24th. Phone interviews will be held September 6th-8th and applicants will be notified by September 14th of the decision. There will be about 6 hours of job orientation between October 1 and October 4.
Contact Info: Send a cover letter and resume to equinoxsnowchallenge@gmail.com. Questions are welcomed. Contact Sam Newbury at 406-209-3533.
The 2011 Equinox Ski Challenge will be held March 19-20 at the Rendezvous cross-country ski trails in West Yellowstone.
Racers complete as many laps as they can and may enter as soloists or as members of a relay team of up to 8 members in 3-hour, 6-hour, 12-hour and 24-hour divisions. Kids 12 and under can race for free in the 24-minute challenge.
Bozeman resident Andy Gerlach, who raced on a 5-person team in the 24-hour division in 2010, said that “skiing at night is fabulous.”
“The reflections, the light…everything moves faster.”
Gerlach also noted the race went easier than he expected.
“The first lap was the hardest, and then it got better,” he said.
Gerlach added that having Toko ski wax representative Eric Mittelstaedt working on participants’ skis throughout the event went a long way in keeping them fast throughout the 24-hour ski race.
Wilson Dippo, who races for Bowdoin College in Maine, skied the Equinox for the first time in 2010 on a two-person, 24-hour team, and had a little less time to rest in between laps.
“I went out too hard for a 24-hour race,” he said.
Dippo said his first “bonk” hit around 8 p.m., after skiing with teammate Ian Anderson for nearly 10 hours.
Still, they rested, ate and recovered to ski through the night and win their division with 289.1 kilometers skied.
Dippo said he’s planning to return home to Salt Lake City over spring break and make the trip to West Yellowstone again, this time to ski the 24-hour solo division.
Melissa Alder and Kelli Sanders, owners of Free Heel & Wheel in West Yellowstone, thought first about entering as a two-person team for the 24-hour race, but instead opted to ski the 12-hour individual category so they could ski together.
“The costumes were great. The festive atmosphere was positive, energizing and made me want to keep skiing,” said Alder.
Proceeds from the race benefit the West Yellowstone Ski Education Foundation (WYSEF) and Manaia Youth Programs. Participants are also encouraged to bring food donations for the West Yellowstone Food Bank.
The event includes a Saturday evening potluck and an all-night bonfire at the start/finish line.
Before March 1, registration is $55/adult or $30/junior. Between March 1-March 15, the fee is $75/adult and $50/junior. Race-day registration is $90/adult and $60/junior. Registration discounts are available for racers who also volunteer at the race or who bring someone along to volunteer for them. Registration is free for kids under 12 participating in a 24-minute kids’ race.
Dippo racing the Equinox Ski Challenge. Photo courtesy of Peter Newbury, www.livingbythesecond.net
Wilson Dippo is a sophomore on the Bowdoin College Nordic Ski Team. He raced the Equinox Ski Challenge in West Yellowstone, MT, two weekends ago, and this is his story:
I feel like my 15-year-old arthritic cat. I’m pretty sure my parents are going to need to mash some Cosequin into my dinner soon, too. As I told a friend of mine, “this isn’t the most sore/ tired that I have ever been, but a bunch of my joints have gone on strike, and they say they won’t be coming back until working conditions improve.”
Let me just say right now that this post is a novel, if you can’t be convinced to read the whole thing, the gist is: The Equinox Challenge is super-cool and the Birkie has nothing on it.
Well, let’s take a step back so I can actually tell you about the race. The night prior, I drove up to West Yellowstone from Salt Lake City with my Dad and one of my teammates from high school, Ian Anderson. We were headed for the West Yellowstone Equinox Challenge, a 24-hour ski race. The course was a 9.1K loop, until seven in the evening when it switched to a 6.4 (I think—I never actually checked). The race started at 10 in the morning. Every time that you came through the lap, you had to check to make sure that they had written down your bib number, and then you could either start again, take a break, or tag off to a teammate, if you were in the team division.
Ian and I were the only two-man team (They said beforehand that it was split into solo, two to four, and five to eight person teams, but it really became team division or solo). We flipped a coin and Ian got to start. The whole time he was gone I had my fingers crossed that he wouldn’t be the first one back, because I knew that would mean a really early bonk—especially since there was a fast team from XC Oregon doing the four-person six-hour race. Fortunately, Ian came through a minute or two back, and I was on my way. The course was brutal. It was no Saint Mikes Carnival (for any of you eastern collegiate skiers), but it had one climb in the middle of the loop that was about as hard, or a bit harder, than the last hill at Stowe.
For the first four laps we alternated, then Ian said he was going for two, so of course when my turn came I went for two as well. It was a huge mistake, but I kept doing two laps while he did one, meaning I was on for 50 minutes, off for between 25 and 30. All things told, though, I felt pretty damn good. I was flying – going a bit below threshold – but the tracks were incredibly fast. I was knocking down laps in less then 25 minutes.
My first big mistake happened around 2 in the afternoon, when a five-man team sent out a really fast guy who was drafting off me. I was pretty sick of doing all the work, so I decided to drop him. I was transitioning really well (which paid off big-time, because the loop had a ton of hills that made 180 degree turns right at the top), so at the tops of the hills I would put in a bit of a surge. Over each one I would get away, but then he would just catch back up. After putting in way too much energy I just stepped aside so he had no choice but to pass—at which point he dropped me super-hard.
I crossed 100 k at about 6:00, eight hours into the race, and I was starting to feel it. My forearms just didn’t want to grab the pole for the first five minutes of each leg, the bottoms of my feet started to feel pretty beat, as did my left knee. I didn’t have a clear sense of time for most of the race, but just a little while after 6:00 I had a huge bonk. I really wanted to eat, but didn’t want to do the actual eating – an IV would have been great. I have to give huge props to Ian who, while I was bonked, pulled off an extra leg, which actually gave me enough time to put my skis on again. Well, I went out to do two laps, ended up doing three, and when I came back inside the warming hut I was toast. There was no single thing dragging me down, but I was so low on energy, had so little leg strength left, and hardly any mental drive to keep me going. I ate a bit, Ian came back in just before ten, and we celebrated the 12 hour mark together. I ended up going back to the hotel for a couple hours of sleep, and Ian stayed in the warming hut in a sleeping bag.
Through the course of the night we each did a couple laps, but we were getting nowhere. At 8:00 Ian woke me up, saying we had two hours left to put some more k’s in. He led out with a lap, and then at 8:27 I started mine. 8:27 is important, because the entire lap I was doing the math on how fast we each had to go to get back before 10:00 (everyone had to start their last lap before 10:00 for it to count). I flew around the course in 16:30 (the shorter course, by the way), which I am fairly sure was that loop’s record. Then Ian took a leg, and I again went full speed to try and squeeze the extra six k out of the 24 hours. When I came back through the lap, though, Ian was just standing there. He was totally fried. But I had made up enough time so that our last lap only needed to be 30 minutes to beat the deadline. When I got back, he was there and totally fired up for a victory lap. We went out screaming and shouting, and we were hauling. On one of the downhills I spun around and went down backwards. We came in at 10:05, twenty-four hours and five minutes after we had left for our first lap.
In retrospect, there is a ton that I would have done differently: more varied food (i.e. something that wasn’t sugar/ carbs), slower out of the gate, longer time on thus longer time off, taking my boots off every chance that I had, etc. But regardless it was awesome. Though unofficial, we unintentionally won the 6- and 12-hour team division as well (I think), and at one point we were an entire lap, nearly 30 minutes, up on the entire field.
By the end, the four- and five- person teams had dropped us, besting our 289 k with 450 and 460 k. That is still 145 k each, most of which we did in the first 12 hours. The cocky side of me comes out, and I’ll just say that with one more teammate, I really think that we could have been competitive through the entire night—maybe have even won. So the plan for next year (assuming the Equinox lines up with spring break again) is to go back and race the thing in the solo division, unless we can find a sweet third team member.
March 13th is the 6th Annual North Routt Coureur des Bois in Steamboat Springs, CO. This event offers a 90km and 45 km loop for both skate and classic divisions. The course has received acclaim for its beauty with a route that winds through the Medicine Bow National Forest to Wyoming and back.
The 4th Annual Equinox Ski Challenge is on March 20th and 21st at the Rendezvous Trails in West Yellowstone, MT. Soloists or relay teams are welcome in the 3, 6, 12 or 24 Hour divisions. The 10km laps bring you back each time to a bonfire, hotels, an aid station and cheering squads. Over the years, this race has seen some superhuman efforts from international level racers as well as beginning skiers gaining momentum. The event benefits the West Yellowstone Food Bank, Manaia Youth Programs and the West Yellowstone Ski Education Foundation.
Make use of that hard earned fitness and finish the season strong.
![Equinox Snow Challenge](http://fasterskier.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2015/08/Screen-Shot-2015-08-09-at-10.13.58-AM.png")
