Distinctly Montana Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.distinctlymontana.com/i/20776
In three long lines the endorphin junkies move toward the registration tables in the lobby of the Stage Coach Inn in West Yellowstone, Montana. On the walls behind the tables are hand-lettered signs: A-M, N-Z, and New Registration. Short and tall, male and female, the junkies appear to have one thing in common: lack of flesh. the But that’s tomorrow. This evening, as the skiers head up to their rooms or depart for other motels along the snowy street, the decidedly different folk who have made West Yellowstone the snowmobile capital of North America stand by in their lumpy black insulated coveralls and gawk at what they call “wood fairies.” Writ large across their well-fed faces is the question any sane person would ask: Man in Red and the The women are a Greek mother’s nightmare: hollow cheeks, veiny arms, flat bellies, no hips. If the rest of Amer- ican womanhood were to take after them, the bra would be but a footnote in history. The men, athletic but too lean to be tough, are the second half of “fight or flight,” disappointments to the corporate ladder, TV sports, and the beer industry: no paunches, no jowls, no love handles, but neither any pumped-out pecs. All, men and women alike, wear digital watches with black plastic bands and those brightly colored warm-up tops that inevitably make people look healthy and upbeat. Most of these people are mainstream—25 to 60 years old, teachers, nurses, engineers, lawyers, carpenters, doc- tors, park rangers, postal clerks—and every one of them has come here to go fast. So surely there will be some good old American place-jostling and minor one-upsmanship in the lines. But no. Everyone is cheerful and considerate, ruddy-cheeked from the March cold, greeting old friends with hugs, introducing themselves to the newcomers, and happily paying their $40 each for a plastic bag contain- ing a racing bib, a ticket to the postrace spaghetti dinner, an “endurance snack” that tastes like chocolate-covered sawdust, a souvenir pin, and a T- shirt. From all over the country these 200-odd individuals have come to ski 50 kilometers, a little more than 30 miles, in this seventh of the eight cross-country marathons that make up the Great American Ski Chase. ADVENTURE ESSAY BY TED KERASOTE WoMan in Blue Why do these wood fairies tear around the trails dressed in tissue-thin Lycra with frozen snot hanging from their noses? Why, when they could be really enjoying the great outdoors on a snow machine? Even an insane person— one who has trained for and paid $40 to enter this race, who has even skied marathons before and so knows what kind of physiological horror show he may be in for if he actually “goes for it” and tries to break his “P R” — has to ask, Why? Why again? Saying you’re addicted to the best legal recreational drug around, the endorphins that your own body produces during aerobic exercise and that give such a top-of-the- world feeling, is a poor answer. You can get an endorphin high by skiing 15 kilometers, without the side stitches, burnt lungs, and aching quads you get skiing 50, not to mention the chance of crumping someplace around the 40-kilometer mark, where all the spaghetti, pancakes, and “endurance snacks” you so carefully carbo-loaded seem to drain out of your heels, leaving an enormous hole that endorphins can’t fill. Of course, you can always pull out that old maxim, “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong,” as you finish hours after the winner. Fine. The question remains: How swift do you have to be to know you skied your own good race? Swift enough to believe that once upon a time you could have escaped a saber-toothed tiger? The Blackfoot, 28 DISTINCTLY MONTANA • WINTER 2011