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| Vertical Skitour Racing (Source: International Ski Mountaineering Federation) |
I had a panic attack in the gondola. Just a minor one, where
my heart started racing and that feeling of helplessness swept over me.
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| With Luca (right) and Anton Palzer (Austrian ski touring king!) |
The race started at 6 pm, after the slopes were free of the
daytime skiers, the course could be marked, and the sun set behind the mountains
welcoming darkness over the valley. This last point was the instigator for the
panic. It was so dark in the gondola that I could barely see the faces of the
people sitting just feet in front of me. The tall evergreens zipping by were a
blur and the ground below was indiscernible.
What if I get lost? What if my headlamp batteries die out?
What if I can’t finish the race, have to stop, and freeze to death out here
because no one can find me in this blackness?!?
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| Crossing the Finish |
Luca was with me. My daughter’s 17-year-old boyfriend. He’d
also never done a ski tour race before, let alone any other kind of race. I
kind of dragged him into it. The poor guy didn’t know what kind of a crazy
family he was getting involved with. I could almost read his mind as we were
being drawn upwards into the unknown… What
am I doing here?!? I just wanted to
date the pretty girl!
We exited the gondola at the middle lift station, which was
also the starting point of the race. We arrived 25 minutes before the start and
there was no place inside to wait, so we walked out into the cold night, looked
at up the luminous mountain and the treacherous incline we were about to attempt.
It was really steep. Could my skins grip that? What if it’s icy? I’ll just keep
sliding back down into the starting line, crossing it in the wrong direction!
And damn, it’s cold out here!
Then I spied the bathrooms and I told Luca I was going to
check and see if they were heated. They were. And that’s where I remained for
the next 15 minutes. Another one of the racers was in there, a
20-something-year-old woman from a nearby village who was also doing this for
the first time.
Ten minutes before the start I went outside and did some
jumping around and stretching to warm up, then put on my skis and headed to the
inevitable.
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| "Finished" in every sense of the word |
…3…2…1 and at the signal we were up, up and away! Almost
immediately my pulse was in the red zone. Despite the insane incline, my skis
held firm to the snow. Most of the skiers were quickly ahead, but I was at my
limit and simply progressed as fast as I could, concentrating on keeping a
smooth stroke and focusing on the path in front of me.
After the initial steep ascent, there was a section with a
gradual slope but my pulse never seemed to slow down. The light from my
headlamp was adequate though and mercifully supplemented by the skiers behind
me. A few officials were on the course with lights to guide our path every few
hundred meters, so thankfully I never felt that I could potentially get lost.
Around a curve and the lights at the finish line way up on
the top of the mountain were in sight! On that flatter section I was passed by a
man who’d been right behind me the whole way, but as soon as we reached another
steep ascent I overtook him again and that’s how it stayed. The last ascent up
to the finish was amazingly precipitous, my heart rate was at a max but there
was no slowing down for fear of sliding backwards, so I just powered on with
everything I had left. I heard some cheers but kept my head down, afraid to
fall off balance if I turned in any direction. Then just when the burn in my
quads was too much to bear, after an intensely anaerobic thirty minutes, the
flash of the photographer’s camera signaled the end. But the beginning of a new
addiction.
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| Mountain chalet with post race party |
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| Post Race Party |
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