By Gavin Kentch
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Was last night’s skate sprint relay here at Kincaid Park a fun, low-key, season-ending fling; a citizens race bloodsport with one of the deepest domestic fields of the entire year; or American ski development at its best, without even trying? Yes.
There was a ski race held here on Tuesday night. It was part of the, well, Tuesday Night Ski Races series, billed, accurately, as “A fun, family-friendly Nordic Ski Event.” Registration was online-only, but organizers promised that you can sign up in your car on the way to the race. Entry fee is $25, with proceeds going to support the local college ski team.
Kids raced for free (which is awesome). Only the final member of each relay team wore a bib, and results were compiled by hand on a legal pad. Post-race refreshments included hot chocolate and cookies, and an announcer thanked local sponsors. If you have spent any time in American nordic skiing in your life you have probably done a race like this; they are humble and cheap and accessible and important.
But not every town series race has World Cup winners on the start line. And an Olympian on the stadium P.A. system. And Olympians racing, but not even making the podium. Welcome to late-season citizens racing in Anchorage.
The only results that I currently have for the race are pictured above. This is, to paint in broad strokes here, current Alaska Winter Stars athletes winning the men’s race, followed by retired APU in second and current UAA in third. In the women’s race, that’s APU World Cup skiers in first, UAA college skiers in second, and APU juniors in third. In the mixed-gender race, that’s Gus Schumacher, former Winter Stars, and current UAA alpine in first, current and former APU in second, and APU juniors in third.
I’m not going to give you a deep dive on elementary school kids for the juniors race (bottom paragraph of results), but I will say that, if one grew up doing endurance sports in Anchorage in the 1990s, then seeing Prossers atop the podium at Kincaid is not a new experience. Virtually the entire rest of the junior top-three — Hauser, Cohen, Uffenbeck, Kastning, Christopherson — similarly boasts recognizable names from past or present Alaska ski racing. It’s a small town.
Okay, that’s who won the race. Here’s what it was like:
The juniors race, three times around a 500-meter loop, went off at 7 p.m., with the senior race, 3 x 1.7km, starting an indeterminate and informal amount of time thereafter, about 10 minutes. Sunset in Anchorage last night was at 8:50 p.m., and the evening light was full and rich throughout the proceedings.
It had snowed around four inches the night before, then cooled off; in addition to the race course, another 40 or 50km of trails had been groomed that day at Kincaid alone. The air temp was in the high 20s, the snow temp in the low 20s; it was crisp, but there was real warmth to the sun. My bias here is clear, but last night, Anchorage in the spring felt like about the best time and place possible to be a cross-country skier. (Yes, Devon, I’ll grant you that Scandinavia is probably pretty sweet right about now too.)
At roughly 6:45 p.m., the sun still high in the sky, packs of skiers did their hot laps, a pre-sprint staple that (a) provides a physiologically important pre-race stimulus and (b) makes you feel really cool. Skiers for Alaska Pacific University whizzed by as one cloud of photons. Over here was Alaska Winter Stars, over there was Alaska Nordic Racing. University of Alaska Anchorage. Team Alaska. Only In Alaska. In the Lower 48, ski teams are named after cities or clubs or sponsors; in Alaska, we just name them after Alaska, because Alaskans really like Alaska. Alaska!
(As an aside, I saw more Norwegian team suits at the venue last night than I did Loppet Cup hats. You know the joke where newly arrived [religious group A] is touring heaven, and everyone they see is just talking and laughing and having a raucous good time, but then they approach a building with few windows and they have to be really quiet and just creep by before resuming their party? The punchline is, “Oh, that’s [religious group B]; they think they’re the only ones here.” The joke is not a metaphor for Alaskan skiers vis-à-vis Outside the rest of the country, but it is not not a metaphor for Alaskan skiing, either.)
The grade-school athletes set off for a combined three laps around the stadium. They were led out by skiers from UAA, which hosted the race. The median age of the racers was approximately nine. Some of them were skating; some of them were classic skiing on fishscales. Adam Verrier, who previously did color commentary and finish-line interviews for the American Birkie, narrated the action. Everyone cheered for every skier. It was very wholesome.
Soon after, the senior athletes moved toward the start line. There are six different American cross-country skiers who claimed an individual World Cup podium last season, a historic high-water mark for skiing in this country; three of them (Gus Schumacher, Rosie Brennan, JC Schoonmaker) were in this race. At least four more Olympians were in the field, plus two additional athletes who “just” had World Cup starts last season.
This was all so notable precisely because it was not notable. There are a lot of good skiers here; you see them out training all year long. In November or April or May, when they are not racing in Europe, you can head on out to Kincaid or Hillside or Hatcher Pass, where you can talk with them during a training session or get destroyed by them during a race. Anchorage is a tough place to try to win an age-group award, but a great place to be a skier.
“That’s just Anchorage,” said women’s podium finisher Merridy Littell afterwards of this dynamic. “We’re all prepared to get pummeled.”
The race started. The legal pad with results does not have split times, and for the sake of easing logistics only the anchor leg was wearing a bib for each team.
So, here’s what I can tell you about the race: Here is the lead pack crossing under the bridge at approximately the 1.4-kilometer mark of lap one.
That’s Murphy Kimball leading Luke Jager in the start of the video. Thomas O’Harra is third. Then Ari Endestad, I think, in fourth; he looks très dapper, but also is not exactly wearing a team suit. Galen Johnston, pink hat, in fifth. (Disclaimer: Galen has been my coach with APU Masters for the past decade.) (Further disclaimer: I know, and have lost a race to, basically every single person discussed in this article.) Forrest Mahlen in seventh. Rosie Brennan, Norwegian suit, near the end of the clip, is the first woman.
Lap two, same spot, 1.7km later. The athlete getting the most cheers is Jack Leveque (second under the bridge, red and white Alaska Winter Stars tights), 2009 birth year per his public USSS profile, ably throwing down with athletes older than him, but not that much faster. (Okay, Michael Earnhart, in the white tank top, does come past him over the top of the hill.) Does this video basically portray ski development happening in real time? Probably yes.
Just a few minutes later, here is the finish: Cole Flowers (Alaska Winter Stars) leads in Eric Packer (APU, ret.) to take the overall win as Verrier narrates. Matt Seline (UAA) is close behind in third. JC Schoonmaker is next, then renowned sprint maestro Scott Patterson.
Someone in a Canada suit who stumps me, sorry. Cody Priest in a blue top and white headband. A blurry pan to the crowd because I’m not very good at this, and then the video ends. There are a lot of people here for a ski race in this country! In April! On firm snow!
Shortly thereafter, Novie McCabe, Swedish suit, leads in the winning women’s team (her, Brennan, and Renae Anderson). Gus Schumacher is close behind, having channeled Goms 2018 to throw down an all-time anchor leg and bring his team from some distance back all the way up to the mixed-gender overall win.
“This was a nice fun way to end the season,” said McCabe at the finish. “It felt a little bit rough because I don’t think any of us have done much this past week, but it was fun.”
“It’s fun to see the ski community showing up here and everyone having a good time,” she added. “I think it’s so cool to see all the younger kids racing and everyone competing together. I think it’s a really cool thing and it gets everyone excited about the sport.”
Eric Packer, seen in the third video above anchoring a close-second men’s team, sounded similar themes.
“It is so cool to see Gus Schumacher and JC mixing it up with high school skiers,” Packer said, “with middle school skiers, all in the same course, mixed together. It’s just a really cool scene.”
“And you can just see and feel the excitement right now,” Packer continued. “We’re surrounded — as we’re doing this interview, we’re surrounded by skiers literally skiing in a circle. Super exciting. So it’s just a cool atmosphere, and I’m thankful to be part of it.”
He added, “April is the best time of the year to have ski races. I was so happy that they organized this; I wouldn’t miss it for the world. Just an incredible venue, incredible evening. So, so thankful for the volunteers and organizers to pull this off.”
Did anyone else think that the entire evening was an object lesson for American ski development? Reader, they did.
Here’s Trond Flagstad, head nordic coach at UAA:
“We have the whole ski community here, including the World Cup skiers and Olympians, plus all the kids that are skiing in the clubs and juniors that are going to Junior Nationals. So it’s just great to get everyone together so we can see each other at least once a year.”
Flagstad added, “One thing I think that the World Cup skiers here are really good at is coming out to the community and helping. I think there’s been something going on nearly every day in the last week, like different events that they come to, and so they’re really giving back and giving to the community, which is great.”
Here’s JC Schoonmaker, UAA class of 2022, who raced with former UAA coaches Flagstad and Toomas Kollo:
“For the kids and development, for the community, it’s huge to see everyone here. And the races are over, but people are sticking around, mingling. It’s just a fun event. So to get people out and enjoying a ski race is just awesome for the development of cross-country skiing and the community of it.”
(Schoonmaker added that he was more nervous for Tuesday night’s race than for an in-season World Cup contest, “because I’ve mostly just been on the couch” since the season ended. “I was probably a little more nervous just for the pain tonight,” said a man with three Olympic starts and one World Cup podium to his name, discussing a race in which one relay team competed all clad in banana suits.)
Here’s Luke Jager: “It’s so awesome” to race at home, he said. “I mean, the skiing itself is like incredibly good. It’s April. … And also you can’t go more than a few feet without seeing someone that you know or that you grew up with or that was like your coach or something. That’s pretty awesome.”
Jager was a last-minute arrival to the venue, whereupon he learned that his girlfriend, McCabe, had been recruited to race with the APU women’s World Cup crew. “So I was like, Oh, shoot, we’re going out there, I guess,” recounted Jager.
The APU skier ended up racing with Brandon Brewster and Jan Buron, the longtime doyen of Alaska Winter Stars.
“It was a meeting of the minds, a healing of the APU/Alaska Winter Stars wounds, the great divide” said Jager, tongue firmly in cheek, of his bipartisan team makeup.
“I mean, I love those guys,” he continued, now serious. “And it’s fun to get to be on a team with Jan too, especially after — he’s such a huge part of the Anchorage skiing world.”
Turning to those Winter Stars skiers, Murphy Kimball had a World Cup start this year, in Canmore, but also is still just 17.
Kimball said that he felt more pressure for this race than for the World Cup, and he meant it.
Why, he was asked.
“Because Luke Jager’s on the start line,” he said, “and Ari Endestad, and Corbin. And it wasn’t an interval-start, it was a mass start.”
And finally, here is the overall women’s podium for this race. That’s current World Cup skiers in first, current NCAA skiers in second, and current fast local juniors in third. Someone smarter than me should say what story this podium shot tells about skiing and progression in this country, but suffice to say that there is a story there. Sometimes development is formalized and systemic; sometimes development is a little more organic. It takes all kinds.
Merridy Littell, 16, from the fast junior end of this podium (far left above), pronounced her race to be “pretty good, considering I haven’t done intensity in a few weeks.” She said that the long sprint distance, even after such a layoff, was “physically hard, but not mentally hard.”
Did Littell like the way she skied last night?
“Yes, I’m very proud of my efforts,” she said.
Okay, why?
“Because I beat my dad’s team.”
Scene.
I could go on, and could hymn at even greater length the virtues of Anchorage as a nordic ski community, but for one I’m clearly intractably biased here, and for another you’ve heard enough from me on this point already.
So the final word here on What This All Means and Why It Matters goes to one Chad Salmela, a staunch Midwest ski coach who is far less of a dyed-in-the-wool cheerleader for all things Alaskan:
“Proximity to star athletes promulgates a sense of what can be achieved,” Salmela wrote in a May 2021 blog post about his experience encountering Anne Kyllönen on the trails near his then-home in Jyväskylä, in central Finland.
“It’s not surprising that Anchorage, Alaska, is perhaps the hottest bed of rising cross country ski racers in America,” continued Salmela. “Stratton Mountain has that going for it too, but it’s tucked away in a relatively small Vermont resort village with limited interaction with any sizeable population. Kids who go to the Stratton Mountain School get it every day, as do townsfolk nearby, but it’s not like Anchorage.
“While the Alaska Pacific University program can be credited for much of that effect, the fact that a kid biking around Anchorage at a time when Kikkan Randall was at her peak, might have run into her doing a set of intervals in a housing development, has cultural value and significance to developing more great ski racers. Sadie Bjornsen and Rosie Brennan have been there all while US skiing was rising as well. It’s not the sole reason Anchorage is pumping out folks like Gus Schumacher, Luke Jager, and JC Schoonmaker, but it helps. [This final sentence has aged well. – Ed.]
“And I think that’s what’s cool to me about running into Anne around Jyväskylä. It provides some cultural insight into Finland as a skiing nation. Seeing might not be believing, but it is believable.”
You’re reading this on Nordic Insights, one man’s labor of love dedicated to publicizing American nordic skiing. Last season’s GoFundMe is literally the only reason why I turned a profit in year one of Nordic Insights, and in turn the only reason why there is a year two of Nordic Insights for you to be reading now: I was okay with working for very little money to get this love letter to American cross-country skiing off the ground, but I didn’t want to lose money for the privilege of doing so. If you would like to support what remains a brutally shoestring operation, this season’s GoFundMe may be found here. Thank you for your consideration, and, especially, for reading.
