Night Views, Sunlight Mountain Photo by David Bitton

I went back and forth about actually competing in 24 Hours of Sunlight for a number of reasons. I had, just the month before, left my “successful” and high paying job at Microsoft for the life of a struggling endurance athlete. So money was one factor and this race was kind of pricey. However, I could not get over how cool the idea was. This race was the first ever 24-hour ski mountaineering race. The premise was simple— challenge the best backcountry skiers around to see who can climb and ski the most vertical feet on a closed course in one 24-hour period. Brilliant. Mike Marolt of USSA was the idea man and the whole event was a fund raiser for the Jimmy Huega Foundation for MS.

The next thing I knew I had thrown down money, driven to Denver to get my support person and was running to start the race on time. My competition was the guys you read about in ski magazines: Greg Hill, Andrew McLean and Steve Romeo, to name a few. These guys were there to break the world record, held unofficially by Canadian Greg Hill— 40,100 vertical feet climbed in one day. Knowing I had no chance of competing with these guys in my second ever ski race I decided that 30,000 feet was a good goal to chase instead.

I had my share of issues before the race even started. Three weeks previous to the race I had done a ski tour in which I crossed the Teton mountain range from Jackson Hole Mountain Resort to Driggs, Idaho. During the tour I got frostbite on both of my big toes. The left toe had healed and felt fine, however, the right toe still had a black tip. Skiing the Jackson Hole backcountry everyday hadn't allowed my toe to heal. Now I was going to put it through 24 hours of racing in the cold, not the best idea, but I just couldn't miss this challenge. I had promised my mom and my girlfriend that if the frostbite started to get worse at any point in the race I would stop.

"Apparently I had been keeping pace with legendary mountaineer Andrew McLean!

At 10:00 AM 100-plus racers started skinning, hiking, snowshoeing and running up the slope. Our course would take up 1,550 feet to the top of Sunlight Mountain Resort in Glenwood Springs, CO. The location seemed perfect and the sun was out to greet us race morning. The temperatures were in the single digits and had reached 16 below the night before, so needless to say I was a bit concerned about the toe. The website had promised an average grade of 7 percent, which is a pretty easy 25 degree slope. It wasn't until just before the race that we found out the course had been changed. From what I could tell the course was now more aggressive, with a few super-steep sections to navigate. I witnessed more than a few Warren Miller movie type follies throughout race, if only he had been there to film it!

The first lap is still sort of a blur for me, even as I write this, now a few days later. It's easy to overdo the first lap in the excitement, so I focused on moving efficiently and not worrying about where I was in the pack. I remember seeing Greg Hill and the other pros up at the front and it set me at ease that I was so close to them, at least for the time being. I finished the first lap in 39 minutes, in seventh place. From there I tried to ease into a maintainable pace, but with all the excitement I was still running hot.

Although this was the first ever 24 hour ski mountaineering race, the format is well-known to endurance mountain bikers—Complete as many laps as you can in 24 hours. One of the problems we have as solo racers is not to get caught up chasing everyone who passes us. Since there are many categories, you could end up chasing that guy in the gaper outfit because it hurts your ego to see him go by. But guess what? There are five of them taking turns and chances are he's been sleeping for four hours since his last lap. You have to let it go.

After 8 hours and 30 minutes of racing (6:30 PM) I'd accomplished half my goal of 15,000 vertical feet and I hadn't even sat down yet. I prematurely started to recalculate my numbers, thinking, “I'm on a 45,000-foot pace right now! I could get for 45,000 feet! I'm going to get 45,000 feet!” I was way ahead of schedule, but I knew I would be entering the pain dojo very soon. Of course I had to keep an eye on my toe as well, so as the sun went down I had to start stopping periodically and assessing my situation.

My support crew consisted of just one person, super star, adventure photographer and friend Mike Bitton. He had flown in from Portland, OR the day before and was my personal angel. I'd ski in, he'd hand me the fluids, food and whatever else I chirped for with lightning efficiency. He was great and lord knows I can be short during a race. I'm notoriously impatient during the course of a normal day, the race brings it to another level, but we were having fun with it. I was way ahead of schedule and had been in sixth place for a while. Although I had no idea during the race, I had apparently been keeping pace with ski mountaineering legend Andrew McLean.

I also ran into Team Crested Butte adventure racer Bryan Wickenhauser on the course. I hadn't seen his name on the solo list and didn't expect to see him racing. He was putting on quite a show. Wick, on his edgeless XC skis was chasing Greg Hill all over the mountain, never letting him out of his sight. It was just mind-boggling that he was able to keep up with XC skis. With the course being much steeper than advertised I could not believe the relative ease he skied down this slope without a ski with an edge.