High. Lonesome. Pain.

Ethan Passant, Travis Scheefer win 2011 Grand Traverse

The Sunday after the first annual Elk Mountains Grand Traverse, a group of “racers” were sitting in the Eldo patting themselves on the back for finishing the inaugural event. As they reminisced about the slog from Crested Butte to Aspen, Keith Fortin summed it up best saying, “You won’t know, until you go.”

Who would have thought that those words continue to ring true 14 years later.
During this year’s pre-race meeting on Friday, March 25, Eric “H” Baumm, professional ski patroller and ski area coordinator for the race, gave teams the lowdown. There was talk of sustained winds and cold temperatures. With the threat of ground blizzards ever present in the high country, Baumm started relaying compass coordinates and declinations for the teams in order to orient themselves toward Taylor Pass.
Teams throughout the room started grasping for pens and scraps of paper to take the information down.
Baumm gave them a heading from a “big rock” and a declination of 14 degrees among other bits of orientation information and finished his talk with “Godspeed.”
Once again, it was on.
It turned out the weather, at least ground blizzard weather, was not the problem. In fact, this year’s race was blessed with clear skies and no wind.
“You could have lit a match on Taylor Pass,” said one racer.
This year was an entirely different beast.
When the lightweight alpine touring revolution hit the Grand Traverse, it seemed everything would be straightforward from there. Aside from the weather, which is somewhat predictable thanks to the Internet and weather forecasting experts, everything about the race should be fairly simple.
But as Fortin said, “You won’t know, until you go,” and a slew of racers, both veterans and rookies, found that out once again this year.
Allen Hadley, who finished in seventh place this year with partner Todd Malzhan, is the only person to have started and finished all 14 Grand Traverse races. He said this about the Grand Traverse: “You can’t take it for granted—there is no formula.”
Some years it’s the weather that wreaks havoc. Other years it’s the snow. Every year it’s the whup-dee-doos on Richmond Hill.
This year, several of the top teams were sent reeling as climbing skins were constantly falling off skis, rendering them nearly useless.
“This year it was definitely the atmospheric conditions,” says Hadley. “We had perfect conditions for condensation and icing.”
Furthermore, while the top spots are generally dominated by men’s teams, this year not one but two coed teams made a run for the title, ultimately finishing in second and third place behind the winning Crested Butte team of Travis Scheefer and Ethan Passant.
Scheefer and Passant finished in second place the last two years but not this year, as they out-kicked two coed teams to win the 14th Annual Elk Mountains Grand Traverse in a time of nine hours, 14 minutes and 50 seconds.
“We definitely went into it wanting to win,” says Scheefer. “But we have a different approach, I think. We want to win, but if we don’t, hopefully we’ll do well.”
The Crested Butte coed team of Stevie Kremer and Marshall Thomson were right on their heels, coming in second place in a time of nine hours, 16 minutes and 30 seconds, and the coed team of Sari Anderson and Peter Gaston out of Carbondale finished in third place with a time of nine hours, 17 minutes and 20 seconds.
In fact, the top 10 teams all crossed within 20 minutes of each other. There have been closer finishes between first and second place, but this was the tightest grouping time-wise of the top 10 teams.
It all started on the climb up to the Friends Hut. Typically, the heavy hitters can build a gap on their way to the Friends Hut, with a lead pack of five or eight teams jockeying for the lead.
But with no trail broken, teams settled into a Conga line and shuffled their way up the drainage.
“It was 50 people tip to tail,” says Scheefer. “That was a weird aspect. We just hung out in that line.”
“It was pretty mellow,” adds Kremer. “I felt great and I couldn’t believe I was in line just a couple people back from Travis Scheefer.”
Scheefer admits the “leisurely” pace to the Friends Hut actually put the hurt on him. Without hitting a race-pace gear, the climb to the Friends Hut, in a way, lulled him to sleep.
But Passant ramped it up to charge out of the Friends Hut to Star Pass and Scheefer did what he could to stay close.
“At that point I felt like I was blowing up,” says Scheefer. “But Ethan was pushing it and I just suffered going up to Star Pass.”
Teams were treated to classic backcountry powder skiing off of Star Pass and down to the next transition for the climb to Taylor Pass.
At this point a trail was broken and it was time to separate the men, and women, from the boys.
It was there that Passant and Scheefer might have won the race. As several teams struggled with their skins, Scheefer and Passant started heading up the trail toward Taylor Pass along with Anderson and Gaston and a team out of Breckenridge.
“I think things turned around for us at the bottom of Star,” says Scheefer. “We were determined to cross the line first.”
Thomson led the charge for Kremer and she gambled with her skins as one started to peel off.
“I was just trying to keep up with Marshall,” says Kremer. “When Star hit, it hit hard. One of my skins started coming off after Star Pass but I just glided as best I could, trying to keep from picking my skis up. I was really, really lucky.”
Anderson led the charge to Taylor Pass but once there, things turned back into a grind as there was no trail broken from Taylor Pass to the Barnard Hut.
Scheefer, Anderson and Passant took turns breaking trail to the Barnard Hut and they were hit with one more gut punch as they came into the final checkpoint.
The stretch from Barnard to the top of Aspen Mountain is the final seven miles of the 40-mile race. It’s typically tough enough with snowmobile whup-dee-doos the entire way. This year, fresh snow made it even tougher.
“When we pulled into the Barnard Hut and saw the trail wasn’t broke, I kind of lost it,” says Scheefer. “That kind of took it out of all of us.”
It wasn’t until the Barnard Hut that Kremer realized how well they were doing.
Scheefer endured one last skin failure and as he stopped to address it, Passant took off with Anderson and Gaston to hold them in check.
Two miles into the final stretch, Scheefer caught back up with Passant and they decided it was time to finish their competition off.
“I was feeling good at that point,” says Scheefer. “Ethan and I realized it would be good to get out in front.”
The final move sealed the deal for Passant and Scheefer as they pulled away from Anderson and Gaston for good.
“I looked back and saw Peter but I couldn’t see Sari,” says Scheefer. “We realized we had a good gap and we just motored it home.”
Thomson and Kremer had some still left in their tanks as well for the final seven miles and Thomson charged out of the Barnard Hut with Kremer close behind. Kremer got one final boost when they caught Anderson and Gaston.
“Marshall just took off from the Barnard Hut,” says Kremer. “He knew we could do it. When I saw Sari was when I decided to buck up.”
Kremer and Thomson passed Anderson and Gaston and “motored” to finish in second place.
“I never thought we would have done as well as we did,” says Kremer. “It was definitely a shock, but a great one.”

You won’t know, until you go.