Kootenay Coldsmoke Powder Fest -- Skimo Races

This weekend Amber and I travelled to Nelson, BC for the Kootenay Coldsmoke Powder Fest’s “ROAM Randonnee Rally” and funner Poker Run (ski mountaineering races).  I decided to step it up and sign up for the “open division” of the main race rather than the recreational division.  The open division appeared manageable (4200 or so feet of ascent) while the rec division looked pretty short (less than 2000 feet).  Part of the objective, obviously, is to burn as many calories as possible so that I can drink more beer and eat more afterwards.  I wasn’t completely sure I could make the one cut-off in the longer race but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to at least give it a try.

Due to fresh snow, a slightly different course was followed (avy danger required modifications -- and trust me there was avy debris all over the place due to the massive amount of bombing/avy control happening).  But this is a basic picture of the course with green being up and red being down (or more accurately skins on/skins off).

from website

 

On the whole, the skin tracks up were really nice and the descents were fun, powdery out-of-bounds runs.  The tricky parts were the “flat” sections with significant downhill sections that were skied with skins on.  I find it difficult to ski downhill with my skins on, personally.  I spent a lot of time doing this:

I have never fallen down so much in my life

There were two “boot pack” sections, the first of which was where the cut-off was, but I made it with more than half an hour to spare.  The second was pretty steep and began on a traverse.  I think we were initially supposed to somehow ski uphill (without skins) to the beginning of the steep climb, but it was obvious from the foot prints that everyone took their skis off in the middle of the open steep traverse.  A short part of the traverse went downhill which was not very fun with skis on your backpack -- the bottoms of the skis were hitting the ground and dragging a bit.  Sort of unsettling really.  The second boot pack section was pretty steep with cliffs on the sides and looked like this:

there was a handy fixed rope at the top but I basically wanted to puke the whole way up

 

Eventually I made it to the finish, dead last, but pleased to have finished (in 3:47 or something like that).  If it weren’t for the downhill parts I would easily be *not* last.  I am able to pass some folks on the uphills but the descents are still pretty embarrassing for me.  That said, I am improving.  We spent some time chatting with a couple that has done a lot of bike racing and Ironman competitions who did their first skimo race at the ROAM rally -- they both thought it was by far the hardest race they had done.  It's hard to avoid being mostly anaerobic during these things, which is pretty hard physically.  Add to that the technical challenges and you've got a hard race.

The next day Amber and I did the “Poker Run” which was a much shorter skimo race done in teams.  Oddly it had the most difficult descent of the weekend, forcing us to drop into a gully that wasn't exactly easy to get into... but I did it after a bit of consternation.  We were “Damber Damber Dam Dam Dam” and we cleaned up, winning the race (by drawing three Kings).  We also finished well in the top half speed-wise, I would add.  The Poker Run was really fun and included a downhill slolom course.  I no doubt looked JUST LIKE an Olympic ski racer.  Our winners’ loot included avalanche beacons and then Amber won skis.  We are always really lucky in Canada (I previously won an Arc’Teryx jacket and a Dewalt cordless power drill).  We also won really cool homemade belt buckles.

The next and last skimo race of the season will be the Dogtooth Dash in Golden, BC in a few weeks.  I did this one last year, though I bailed on the last loop of the “Enduro” course and did the “rec” course.  This year I’ll likely try to finish the Enduro but will have to think about it since White Mountains 100 is the following weekend...