Ken Jones Classic - Pan American Championships

With World Championships happening every 2 years, there has been a push to get a continental championships going on the other years. The idea is that the venue will alternate between Canada and USA. This year, it was Canada's turn (Crested Butte in 2012, Wasatch in 2016, etc..).

The three day event took place at Lake Louise with a vertical race on Friday, a sprint on Saturday, and an individual race on Sunday. Going in, I wanted to focus on the vertical and have a good result in the individual, and I wasn't too concerned with how the sprint would play out which would be beyond my control. So I skipped the sprint.

The vertical race took place on the final climb of the Ken Jones classic individual course. Up Larch, through Rock Garden to Elevator shaft. This is a climb that I have suffered up many times with fatigued legs at the end of the races, battling with 1-3 other skiers. This time, we'd be taking it on with fresh legs and starting with the entire field!

After a comfortable start, it started to feel a little too comfortable...so I attacked. By the time I was caught, just as we reached the flatter section, there were just 4 of us in a front group, but my legs were hurting! The course finished with a single skintrack section so while I entered the pain cave early on, I didn't have to worry about passing, just about hanging on. Barely. In the end I finished 4th. I had a strong race but was regretting not pacing better.

Sunday's individual race started early and cold with not much time for a warmup. The race would be long with the ER5 bootpack added in (as it was in 2016), in addition to the rest of the normal course! I let others dictate the pace and pretty much dangled in 4th place the entire race, seeing Rory in 3rd at skins-on transitions. With a strong bootpack, I had increased my grip on 4th place, but definitely was looking forward to the top of the final climb (the same climb as Friday's vertical race). 

The large field. Not only did a bunch of Americans come out, but it seems like there are more local guys donning skinsuits every year!

Grabbed a shotski from the bar to bring up onto the podium

The legs are happy the season is over but I'm feeling pumped for next year after keeping it together during the busy March schedule.

Marmot's Revenge. Racing and course design

The idea of hosting a race at Marmot Basin has been tossed around before, but Alex Stieda was the first to go through with that idea. The namesake "basin" on the mountain provides a great amphitheater of terrain that is perfect for a ski mountaineering race. The mountain is a bit of a hidden gem, but it has the terrain and skis pretty good for the snowfall it gets. Unfortunately, I hadn't actually skied the terrain since 2005, as when I checked out the mountain on the 2017 closing weekend, the upper mountain was closed due to rain and warm temperatures causing avalanches to ground!

Course setting morning, I was relying heavily on the local knowledge of volunteers and staff who were seeing "skimo" for the first time. While things seemed a little hectic in the morning, by the end of the day, we had skintracks that had been bedded in again, and big GS gates on some of the descents. Big kudos to the volunteers for picking things up quickly and making it happen!

"Is the race going up the Cornice? That's pretty steep!"

Race day went pretty well. I took the lead off the start as I usually do, and because I wanted to make sure everyone went the right way as it was not a straightforward cat track. The group was pretty well strung out heading into the technical skinning section and the steep section directly up the ridge to the top.

Then came the descents, into whiteout, which would be the theme for the day. Rocks were hit if you veered too far from the cornice at the top of Tres Hombres. Fortunately the red pin flags provided the definition to get us down. I'm sure even the skiing public appreciated them unless they were content to stick below treeline.

Eric and Nick took off from me for the rest of the day, likely breaking trail on the old skintrack that had been skied over, putting in a huge chunk of time into me on the last climbs. The peak bootpack seemed to go on forever. The elite course did some extra climbs than the recreational course and it was nice to swap encouragement with the skiers as we passed by. In the end I finished 3rd, what I expected, but I couldn't match the pace on the last 2 climbs.

If I were asked to redesign the course for a future event, I would look to changing up the course. 3 descents down the busy Basin Run down to the mid mountain chalet is a little dangerous with all of the people there! The course was a little long and I didn't get to fit Eagle East or Caribou Knoll into the course. I appreciated the technical skinning, but the 1st climb was steep, and we had to repeat it again. So here's what I'm thinking:

1. start at Chalet and climb Eagle ridge
2. descend eagle east to transition at Slash
3. Climb Slash, and Eagle ridge to top of Cornice
4. descend cornice to transition at Knob (avoid going down the busy Basin Run!)
5. Climb to peak (same climb as this year)
6. Descend peak, transition on upper traverse of basin run.
7. Short climb to top of Tres Hombres
8. Descend Tres Hombres to just above traverse
9. Climb up to lower gate of Tres Hombres to top of Caribou Knoll
10. Descend Caribou Knoll.
11. Climb up to lower gate of Tres Hombres
12. Descend Showoff Cattrack to finish!

If that seems long, maybe eliminate 2 and 3.

Panorama Steep Dreams

With a week filled with lots of skiing (backcountry, cross country, and ski hill!) it was hard to remember to leave something in the tank for the Steep Dreams races at Panorama. A vertical race on Saturday followed by the individual race on Sunday.

Backcountry skiing is a team sport...which is why I've spent a bunch of time on cross country skis this winter 😂

A post shared by Peter Knight (@peteyknight5) on Feb 28, 2018 at 6:33pm PST

The vertical (equivalent to a hill climb bike race) is probably my strongest discipline, but with some very fast biathletes crossing over I was a little nervous, as there aren't really any special skills required for the vertical. But I put the nervousness behind and set a brisk pace to the top of the first pitch of the vertical that only Nick could match. Joel from Montana closed the gap as Nick broke some trail which deposited us at the bottom of a very steep groomed section. Nick took off straight up the hill while I took a traversing line and had something left at the end to out-sprint Joel for 2nd.

Vertical Start

Individual race start!

The individual race the next day had a novel format with skiers repeating the same climb 3 times going to a different descent each time before finishing with a different climb. This worked great as from my experience helping set the climb after the vertical race, it was a lot of work to put in just one track. While the track was generally at an appropriate gradient, lots of switchbacks and some short steep sections rewarded good skinning technique and penalizing others with wasted energy and skin failure.. Further magnified as the climb was repeated 3 times!

The short, flat/rolling 1st climb followed by a descent presented an interesting scene as the first 2 transitions were more crowded than usual.

The technical skinning was no problem for me, but unfortunately, I lost sight of Nick after the first descent. Let's just say the timed downhill results from this race quantify how much work I have to do! But I held on for 2nd place.

Unfortunately I will miss the Squamish race (which has an astonishing 82 entries as I write this!), but will course set at Marmot and aiming for a good result at the NA championships at Lake Louise at the end of March.

Roam Randonee at the Coldsmoke Festival

This year's edition featured a different course than when I last did this race two years ago with 3 big climbs, the classic "skins-on descent" and a flattish skin out to the descent of West Ymir run. In the grand scheme of the Canadian race series, the race kicks off a stretch of 5 straight weekends of racing!

Back home now from racing at the ROAM Rando Rally! Every year I’ve had a blast racing at @whitewaterskiresort and this was no different. A hugely improved course made for fun racing and fresh snow meant first tracks plus fun with a bunch of friends! Happy to take my 2nd win here. - #skimo #race #nelson #BC 📸: @practicallypro

A post shared by Eric Carter (@skiericcarter) on Feb 27, 2018 at 7:33am PST

I did my usual thing and took to the front off the start and with only minor trailbreaking in a couple of cm's of new snow, me and Eric were clear at the top of the first climb. Eric took charge on the 2nd climb picking his route and scanning for course markings, "trading off" to me after overshooting a switchback after which I finished off the trailbreaking which ended up being quite deep in the fan up to the base of the bootpack. I could see a group of 4 below, but fortunately that was as close as they would get. The pace along the flat section towards West Ymir was brisk. I fueled up at the top of the descent and dropped in right behind Eric, only to have him gradually disappear into the distance and leave the skins-on transition before I even got there.

On the final climb, I pushed hard to try to close the gap although it was obvious there were a couple of short spots where Eric did some significant trailbreaking. After pushing hard and running the flat section of the bootpack, I counted my time gap, only to lose another minute on the descent to the finish line. So obviously I need to work on my downhill skiing to be more competitive at this level.

The next race is the Steep Dreams at Panorama, so I decided to take a week off of work to do some skiing.