Distinctly Montana Magazine
Issue link: https://digital.distinctlymontana.com/i/20776
that dip, you feel your stomach sink into your shins with g-forces and then exit through your skull as you lift over the next rise—the sensation of going into orbit. Skated in this fashion, the 47th and 48th kilometers al- low you to blow away skiers who don’t know or who have forgotten the course, who can’t ski downhill, or who don’t have the tenacity to follow you up that first climb. This is my strategy as the sunlight and shadow whip by my visor and I double-pole on the slight downgrade leading to the DISTINCTLY MONTANA | DIGITAL Check out schedules and photos from the West Yellowstone Rendezvous Ski Race. Go to www.distinctlymontana.com/westyellowstone111 hairpin. Sagging with tiredness, I’m also thinking that at this point it really doesn’t matter which one of us crosses the finish line first. It’s all so much folderol in a game that has lost its charm, that has been crushed by exhaustion. The man in red and the woman in blue grow larger, and at the turn they elect to stay left. Error. I slip right and come even with them. We go up the hill abreast. Then the player that’s in so many of us, that’s in wolves and lion cubs and young antelope, pushes harder up the hill. And the man in red and the woman in blue, they go harder, as if drawn by a magnet. And I go harder, pushing off my poles, all the while wondering where this energy is coming from and knowing for certain that it’s the two racers by my side, straining to keep up, who are pushing us up the hill. Almost indiscernibly, their tempo decreases. Maybe they’ve forgotten the approaching downhill, on which they could rest. Or maybe, at this point, our minor game isn’t as important to them as it is to me. Or maybe they got even less sleep than I did. Maybe... Maybe we race to speculate on these variables, to see who we are on any given day, and on a very few of these days, when we’re at the top of our game, to create moments that are both lovely and coherent. But no one thinks about that climb- ing a hill. The man in red and the woman in blue slow down, and their slowing makes me go faster, not thinking at all, just feeling the universes of power we win by inches. On the other side—sweet gravity. I tuck, rattle through the fast turn, and don’t glance back until two hills later. It would be too depressing to see them right on my tail! When I do look, I see no one. No one! All right, hit it now! Skate, skate, skate through the fast trees. Left at the last checkpoint, up the broad avenue where we started, past the crowded snowmobiles, and down the long home stretch toward the blue finish banner. How hard to push now, so close to the end? I look back. Three hundred meters behind me, the woman in blue is leading the man in red! Well done, Ms. Blue! Kick it in! On the fumes, I skate under the banner, four hours and a few minutes after I started. I slap the outstretched hands of the Wyoming contingent and pat the shoulder of the man in silver, who came from nowhere to pass me and who’s now bent over at the waist, coughing out his guts. “Good race,” I say, meaning it, and he says, “You, too.” I take off my skis—yes, wondrous wings—and watch the woman in blue beat the man in red under the banner by 25 seconds. Her name is Liz, his John. We have finished 121st, 122d, and 123d, with 79 people still on the course, skating it in toward their own PRs. Ted Kerasote has written about skiing and wilderness travel for over three decades, and his essays and photographs have appeared in Audubon, Geo, Outside, Science, The New York Times, and more than 60 other periodicals. He is also the author of many books, including the national bestseller Merle’s Door: Lessons from a Freethinking Dog and Out There, which won the National Outdoor Book Award. His latest book, Pukka: The Pup After Merle, was just released. 34 DISTINCTLY MONTANA • WINTER 2011