The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
“It’s a test of will and spirit”
[ by Than Acuff ]
This Saturday night, April 2 at midnight, as many as 230 teams of two skiers will line up at the base area of Crested Butte Mountain Resort bound for Aspen in the Montane Grand Traverse presented by CB Nordic and Dynafit.
It’s the 24th running of the unique race that joins Crested Butte and Aspen together via skis. And, as race director Andrew Arell likes to point out, it’s not for the faint of heart.
“It’s not a little fitness outing,” says Arell. “It’s a test of will and spirit.”
Once again, as is often the case, Mother Nature is playing her tricks with stormy weather that has rolled in the week leading up to the event.
“It seems manageable because the weather is earlier in the week rather than right up to the event,” says Arell.
Fortunately, the situation is nothing new for the Grand Traverse snow safety team led by Megan Paden. Paden has been a part of the race snow safety team for eight years and in charge the past three years and has called on Ben Ammon to return in his role on the team as well as new snow safety team members Lani Bruntz and Jack Caprio.
Paden has had eyes on the snowpack along the course but knows everything can change in an instant.
“If 2019 taught me anything, it’s that it changes daily,” says Paden.
With some snow predicted for the week leading up and colder temperatures forecasted, Paden is hoping things will only get better with the snowpack as race day approaches.
“We’re moving in the right direction,” says Paden. “We have a good shot at a great set up but predictions are just predictions.”
The snow safety team headed into the Friend’s Hut on Tuesday and will be providing course updates daily through the Grand Traverse Facebook page up until race day.
The roster of teams runs the gamut of fitness levels and abilities. While some teams are jumping in for the first time to test their personal limits, others are back in it looking to improve on their times from past years.
Then, there’s the handful of heavy hitters who are gunning for the title, as well as setting a new course record. Arell believes the team of Cam Smith and John Gaston are favorites along with a Nordic duo of Simi Hamilton and Ben Koons. Both Koons and Hamilton have raced in the Olympics and posted podium results on the Nordic World Cup circuit as well.
The record time on the current course is 6:06:24 set by Smith and Tom Goth last year and whether or not that can be beat comes down to one major aspect and a lot of little aspects.
“We get closer to solving the puzzle that is the GT every year and we just had amazing conditions last year,” says Smith. “But over such a complex event, nothing ever goes perfectly. We’ve figured out where we can skate and where we can push a little harder. It’s really now down to just small margins.”
And while the event is a race, there is a fundraising component to it led by the team of Pat O’Neill and Valerie Poulin who are racing to raise $24,000 for the “barn raising” to modernize the capacity of the existing CB Nordic Center.
“They’re almost there and just need a little more push,” says Arell.
You can find their page on coloradogives.org and search for Val and Pat’s Outpost fundraiser.
Arell does encourage everyone to come out for the start of the race at the base of Crested Butte Mountain Resort and promises more than just 500 people in speed suits nervously milling about waiting to start the race.
“We’re going to have an enhanced and augmented racer and spectator experience at the start,” says Arell. “It would be great to have a bunch of people out there sending the teams off into the night.”
