GORE-TEX Wastach Citizen Series Ski Mountaineering Race

For the third year in a row, we held a Citizen Series race in conjunction with the Outdoor Retails Winter Market.  In past years, this was just a word of mouth race and we would get 30-40 people to show up at 6:30 AM to get in a race before the show started.  This year, thanks to GORE-TEX, we were able to make the race an official part of the OR On Mountain Demo.  GORE-TEX and Emerald Expositions (the group that puts on OR) worked closely with us on advertising and getting the race lot of publicity through the OR Show mailings.

By race day, we had 75 people pre-registered.

The race format would be 5 laps of a 350’ course for the Race Division and 3 laps for the Recreation Division.

Shortly after 2pm, Andy gave the standard race briefing and safety talk and Chad sounded the starting siren shortly after.  The pace off the line was fast and furious to gain a spot prior to getting into the trees.

The race had its first victim within the first 200M when Tom Goth came walking back with both skis broken in half under the binding and 1 broken pole. The laps were fast for the race division doing each lap in around 6 minutes.  Jason Dorais lead from the start with Marshall Thompson close on his heals the entire race.  the rest of the top 10 were all very close the entire race.  On the women’s side, it was a 1 woman show for Sarah.

The recreation division enjoyed a much more mellow pace with strong skiers keeping a great pace.  The highlight of the rec division was Radley racing with his young kid on his back and Derek finishing with an open beer in hand.

We continue the Citizen Series on Tuesday (28 January) at Brighton so we look forward to seeing everyone there.

Race Winners

Men’s Race Division

1. Jason Dorais – 33:28
2. Marshall Thompson – 33:53
3. Jon Brown – 36:08
4. Pete Swenson – 36:35
5. Scott Simmons – 37:37
6. Teague Holmes – 38:27
7. Eric Bunce – 39:40
8. Andy Dorais – 39:45
9. Jason Prigge – 40:56
10. Tim Holmberg – 41:42

Women’s Race Division

1. Sarah Cookler – 48:43

Men’s Recreation Division

1. Tyler Falk – 28:43
2. Ben Hunel – 30:00
3. Donavan McCan

Women’s Recreation Division

1. Rubin Masters – 41:50
2. Abby White – 48:00
3. Naomi Kiser – 52:17

[Show slideshow]

Thanks to Noah Howell, Brian Kretschmar, and Jason Dorais for their photos.

We wil be posting more photos in the next couple of days.

Thanks to Chad Brackelsberg, Pete Stoughton, Greg Reynolds, Noah Howell, and Liz Knight for helping with the race logistics. Thanks to Andy Dorais for setting a great course and to Teague Holmes, Jared Inouye, and the others who helped pull the course down after the race.

The race earned over $400 to help support the US Ski Mountaineering Association.  These funds will help offset some of the costs of the 2015 World Championship race.

We could not have put on this race without these great sponsors: