Racing at Home!
This past weekend was our biggest yearly event in Canada for ski mountaineering. The dogtooth dash is not only our National Championship but also the best event in the circuit.
The previous day myself and Andrew went to help set the course and check the snow condition and refresh our memory. The course was almost identical to the previous year with over 6000’ of positive vertical gain.
On Saturday at noon sharp, racers gathered around the Eagle Eye restaurant for the start. After a quick run, we took a fast ski down on “it’s a 10” to Crystal bowl to get to the first check point and 1st climb under the “Stairway to heaven “Chair. From there, we descended a couloir to climb up towards the Whitewall. A fast groomer then brought us to the top of Pioner Chair. Multiple switchbacks through the trees brought us back up to Crystal Bowl for our first bootpack and ridge walk up back to the Restaurant. From there we dropped into Bowl Over and climbed back up to T1. A fast descent on the south ridge of T1 and a climb up T2 brought us to our last descent. Then we reconnected with Bowl over for the last climb and bootpack back to the Eagle Eye.
It was a really fun race, being close from home, it was great to see familiar faces and have spectators cheering. Result wise, it’s always great to see how people are getting faster every year!
On the Elite side, Reiner Thoni finished 1st for it’s 4th consecutive title. He covered the course with an impressive 1:49 minutes. Worth noting are also Andrew McNab in 2nd place with a time of 2:05 and Steve Sellers with a time of 2:18.
On the ladies side, I covered the course in 2:15 finishing 1st place with Julie in second place and Katie French in 3rd.
The event was really fun, myself and an other racer Erich from Montana were racing back and forth having a great time suffering together!
On the Enduro Course, Igor Bernas was first, Dominic Unterberger second and third were Brad Lorrimar and Ken Macdiarmi.
On the ladies side Katarina Kuba was first, Amber Steed second and, Sheena Johnson third.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7cLVQM5mpY&feature=player_embedded
Results: http://goldenskimo.wordpress.com/2012/02/12/2012-dogtooth-dash-results/
On the sunday was a fun sprint which was a lung burner ... 2 climbs, 2 descents, a bootpack and a skate ski. Each team of 2, 3 or 4 racers had to cover the course 4 times. The Columbian Connection finished 1st (Andrew McNab, Niall Gleeson and Kevin Weir), The Ladies in Red were second (Carla McKirdy, and myself) and the Knightruse were 3rd (Peter and Bill Knight).
Results: http://goldenskimo.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/2012-sunday-sprint-race-winners.pdf
Next stop, Nelson for the Coldsmoke Festival Feb 25-26!
