Wasatch Night Racing
One of the cruxes of ski mountaineering races in America is that it takes a staggering amount of work to put one on. By comparison, there are all sorts of Citizen League XC races and dual slalom night events, which are a great way to get together, have a casual event/race, stay in shape and keep your interest in the sport. Ski mountaineering night races have been held in Europe for quite a while and have also started up in some Colorado ski towns. Now, after many years of discussion, there is an informal night series in the Wasatch Mountains as well.
The events take place every Thursday night at the Brighton ski resort and are very basic. Based on the honor system, they involve skinning up a groomer, rounding a checkpoint and skiing back down. Repeat as necessary. The awards ceremony is held in the Molly Green’s bar where the winner gets a pie and the option of sharing it with everyone else.
The event is open to all ages and about 40 people turned out for the one last night. For more information, check out the Wasatch Citizen SkiMo Series website, or the Wasatch Powderkeg Facebook page. And speaking of the PowderKeg, it is being held this year on March 10th at Brighton and the surrounding backcountry. Registration info can be found for the 10th Annual event at Ultra Signup.
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Category: Racing
Intermittent Thursdays, not every Thursday… (Just to help out those gung-ho types, who might otherwise find themselves heading up alone, wondering where everybody is)
If your going to be wearing tights you might as well work a drinking game into it. Shot gunning a beer every lap will deduct 1 minute from your time or count as an extra lap…now ya got yourself a race.
Pretty fun way to get in shape and hang out with fellow powder starved freaks.
Thanks for the pub, the more the merrier at these things. Adam is right about the scheduling. Unfortunately, it won’t be every Thursday. Our next evening race will probably be early February. But, this Friday we’ll have one in the AM for the OR folks.
And one more thing, each race will have a different format. Folks seem to like the vert style but our next one will likely be a King of the hill race – one and done (maybe two for the wimpy people on toothpicks and carbon).
See you there? I have an extra skin suit with your name on it!
I was at a night race like this once, I’ve seen you had lights on the ski slopes. But where I went there were no lights on the slopes, in my opinion it is quite ok to go up with your headlamp, but it’s a hard to ski down and see just 20 or 30 meters in front. Night race a nice experince for ski mountaineers.
pie = savory (pizza) or sweet (cherry) ?