Mother Nature turns 2024 Grand Traverse around

Logan Greydanus and Adam Loomis repeat title

By Than Acuff 

It is rare but it does happen.

For the sixth time in the race’s 26-year history, Mother Nature roared and the Montane Grand Traverse ski race from Crested Butte to Aspen on Sunday, March 31 was turned around forcing teams to ski back to Crested Butte.

The snow safety director and Friend’s Hut team lead Eric Murrow, along with snow safety team Kyle Juszcyk, Jack Caprio and Dave Bumgarner, headed into the mountains on Tuesday, March 26 to get course and avalanche conditions from the route up to the Friend’s Hut. They got right to work that evening with continuous efforts setting the course and monitoring the snow, weather and avalanche hazard in the Friend’s Hut and Star Pass areas, including the descent route off Star Pass. What they found initially and on through until Thursday was encouraging, but there was a caveat.

“We were still finding generally unproblematic conditions,” says Murrow. “We were all feeling pretty good, but we knew a storm was coming.”

That is when Mother Nature really stepped in hammering the high country with additional snow and winds that led to whiteout conditions for the snow safety team as they went to work on Friday and increasing the avalanche hazard on the course.

“It was milk jug conditions with no visibility and intense drifting building three-to-six-foot cornices,” says Murrow. “It was a totally different landscape.”

The team got up before daybreak on Saturday to continue assessing the avalanche hazard and they found 30-40 inches of drifted snow, at which point it became evident that it was going to be a “Grand Reverse.”

“All of the snow ended up on the leeward side on the racecourse,” says Murrow. “We weren’t highly confident we could send racers safely over the pass, so we had to call a reverse.”

While a reverse can cause mayhem for racers and organizers alike, Crested Butte Nordic had a contingency plan in place and moved seamlessly into “reverse” mode to send 218 teams into the night at midnight from the base of Crested Butte Mountain Resort.

“With this being my first year in the role of the event director, I wanted to be ready for both the traverse and the reverse just in case,” says Crested Butte Nordic events director Linsey Bachofer. “Thankfully the GT staff felt the same way, so collectively we were able to think through the various aspects of a reverse from medical team locations, volunteer shifts, cut-offs, racer experience, course marking, catering, etc. well in advance. When we made the final call, we used a phone chain to quickly get new plans in place and everyone where they needed to be.”

The course took teams on a 33-mile tour of the Brush Creek drainage with 7,000 feet of climbing, including a loop in the basin above the Friend’s Hut, before turning back down valley with an added bonus tour of the Upper Loop area before returning to the resort boundary and finishing back at the base area.

Defending 2023 champions Logan Greydanus and Adam Loomis took the reverse format in stride.

“It is a bit of a different race,” says Greydanus. “You can put more focus on going hard up to Friend’s Hut knowing you have a long descent after to recover on. That was part of our strategy this year, go hard on the long climb to try to put some distance between us and the other teams. Also, not having to drive back home from Aspen after is nice!“

Greydanus and Loomis were in a lead pack of teams on the very first climb up the resort, but soon took the lead and never looked back to finish the race in five hours and 35 minutes, 42 minutes ahead of the second-place team.

“We didn’t really have a time goal in mind but did want to try to go faster than previous reverses, although it’s hard to compare as the course changes a bit from reverse to reverse,” says Greydanus. “I think we both surprised ourselves coming in around the 5:30 mark though, definitely quicker than we had thought we might go.”

Jessica Yeaton and David Norris won the coed team title, ninth place overall, in a time of six hours and 55 minutes, while Kelly Ahearn and Nikki LaRochelle won the women’s team title, and 12th place overall, in a time of seven hours and five minutes. Marcel Medved and Bob Wade took the Grandest Team title as the oldest average team age to finish.

Of the 218 that started, 189 teams finished including one team who had a skier complete the course after breaking their ski early in the race and another team who had a skier break both skis. After miles of both on one ski, they eventually came across a team who had called it quits and borrowed their skis to finish the race.

“I am very proud of our staff, field teams and volunteers who made this event possible,” says Bachofer. “Despite the reverse route, racers were happy and appreciative of the opportunity to get out in the backcountry and race. At the end of the day, safety is our top priority and we, as a team, were able to put on a successful race and keep everyone out of danger. To me, that is a pretty good year. Time to prep for the summer GT.”

Mark your calendars, the Montane Grand Traverse Mountain Run and Mountain Bike races are August 31 and September 1.