Elk Mountains Grand Traverse

The Elk Mountains Grand Traverse is a very serious backcountry ski mountaineering race that consists of ascending 7,000 vertical feet over the course of 40 miles, from Crested Butte to Aspen. It’s one of those ultra endurance races that attracts people that are very fit and enjoy long periods of exhaustion and suffering. When I first heard about this race a few years ago, I was immediately intrigued by it. It has many ingredients of an epic adventure: long distances, substantial vertical gain, skiing, two person teams and beautiful scenery. While looking up race results, I found Bill Wright’s account of this year’s race and I thought that he did a great job of describing his experience. It’s worth a read:

http://www.wwwright.com/climbing/tripreports/2009/GrandTraverse.htm

If I can find the time to adequately train for such a race, I’d love to give it a try some year.