Uphill Skiing at 75: ‘There’s No One Left in My Category’

Her first uphill ski competition was in Breckenridge in 1996. It was the Imperial Challenge, in which competitors bike or run 6.2 miles from town to the base area of one of the peaks, then climb — either on skis, boards with skins or snowshoes — 3,000 vertical feet to a summit before skiing down to the finish.

Initially, Crawford did the race on Nordic skis with no metal edges. She has worked up to the lightweight ski mountaineering gear she uses today, and also competes in uphill-downhill skimo events like the long course version of the Breck Ascent Series and the Rando Series at Arapahoe Basin, in which competitors ascend the mountain multiple times and descend on double-black-rated terrain.

When asked about the most difficult aspect of these events, Crawford laughed and said, “Doing them.”

“Waking up early in the morning and being able to pace yourself,” she said. “That’s tough. Then the challenge of the transitions — taking off the skins and skiing down on steep, rough snow on those light skis — that’s the really hard part.”

In such races, Crawford is typically among the last to finish, but not always the very last.

“I was born too early for this sport, in a sense,” she said. “In these events, there’s no one left in my category. I’m beating some younger people, but not very often. My goal is, can I do as well or better than I did last year?”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/05/sports/skiing/uphill-skiing-age.html?emc=rss&partner=rss