It was a Grand Reverse course for the 2024 GT. Alex Lee opines on logistics and the reverse course. Note—he’ll be back for more.
The Daytona 500, the Kentucky Derby, The Boston Marathon, all iconic annual events that represent the pinnacle of sport. They bring out the best and inspire the soul of American athletes. Yet they all share common fault, there is no snow in Daytona, the horses run on track, and Boston is often hot in April…they exclude skiing. Luckily there is another event, another marquis de excellence, another stage for the hopeful winter athlete: The Grand Traverse.
For more than a quarter century, the Elk Mountain Grand Traverse has sent an annual field of some 450 skiers racing through the Rocky Mountains from Crested Butte to Aspen, Colorado. The typical course traverses nearly forty miles, beginning at the base of Mount Crested Butte, crossing Star Pass and Taylor Pass, before cruising the infamous Richmond Ridge to the top of Aspen Mountain and finishing with a ripping ski to the base for a total of up to 6500-8000 ft of vert (depending on whose gps track you trust). Finding rando racing while living in Colorado, the GT offered a chance to measure my metal, explore my pain cave, revel in an all-night scoot, and to ski. The race has a way of whispering in the wee hours of the morning, reminding all of our fragility, but then also praising our perseverance. As I have come to understand, to succeed at this race, one need only to be like Dory: Just. Keep. Going.
Some years ago, I first did the race on heavy gear with slow feet. I then bought spandex and lighter skis. This was the race that hooked me on racing. I will never be a superhuman front of the pack skier, but the Grand Traverse has taught me that there are many ways to win a long-distance race, and only one way to lose it. You lose when the race breaks you, but if you can suffer quietly and survive the war of attrition, you win; that’s the game.
Pre GT—It’s all smiles. Alex Lee (left) and partner Ilana Jesse (right).
This year, I headed back to Colorado, headlamp and race gear in hand, for another GT. The race is a team event, one of my favorite puzzle pieces. I joined Ilana Jesse to ski under our newly formed team, Panic at the Bothy! [a bothy, for those who don’t know, is an emergency shelter that ticks a required gear box, it’s sort of like a nylon trash bag that two people can sit underneath…]. Ilana won Last Skier Standing earlier this year. She is the toughest human being I know by a country mile. We have talked for years about racing together, and finally got the chance; Skiing with Ilana was absolutely my GT highlight this year.
Leading up to the race I had my list of worries, the first of which was the altitude. I live at sea level amidst thick air and full lungs. The GT spends much of its course above 12,000 ft. Fortunately I had the time to tack on a visit to see my folks the week leading up to the race in Colorado. This might not solve the altitude issue, but tempered its bite.
The next curveball to deal with came the Monday before the race. Ilana called me with a wicked chest cold. I was relieved, as I had been avoiding calling her with a nasty sinus infection I picked up from my daughter. We figured these ailments would cancel each other out…or at least since misery loves company, our team would be on the same page.
The final hurdle was all the while snow and wind piling up in the mountains. We left a car in Aspen, rented a car and dropped it at the Gunnison airport, took the free bus up to CB, headed to gear check and the athlete meeting, and at 1pm the afternoon before the race, we were told this year would be a ‘Reverse.’ The Reverse is an alternate course when avalanche conditions and weather do not allow the route to Aspen. The current Reverse heads from Crested Butte up to Star Basin below Star Pass and then back. This course is a bit shorter, both in mileage and vert, but every bit as challenging. Much of the mileage is quite a bit flatter, the course includes loads of skate skiing, the need to navigate two-way traffic, a section of dirt road, and a healthy dab of dodging aspens skiing downhill on skins–all of which may actually make the Reverse harder.
I do not envy the decision made by race organizers and do not fault their call. Heightened avalanche conditions and low visibility for the support team assessing the course made the decision for them. So, at midnight some 400 of us took off into the darkness for a round trip. Despite our lingering congestion and my poor red blood cell count, we settled into a good groove early on. Icy conditions made for some slippery skinning which tweaked my hip flexor; crusty snow made for tough passing in the single lane track lower down, but we persisted. Up high we were treated to a brief bit of pow skiing before navigating the luge back in the trees. Skating the flats wasn’t easy but the dirt road provided respite. My spirit stayed high until the loop back around to CB. The last four miles were brutal: my lungs were clogged, my feet hurt, neither skins nor glide really made sense, we both slowed. But I remembered Dory. Eventually the resort was before us and we got to arc a final few turns down to the finish. Panic at the Bothy! pulled in at 8:10 am with one blister, one pair of lost sunglasses, two pairs of beat up skins, a fairly productive cough, and smiles all around. Good enough for 4th place in the co-ed division.
I had a blast racing with Ilana, catching up with Colorado friends, diving into the cultural moment that is the GT starting line, and skiing through the night. That being said, if I am being honest, just ‘tween us, the Reverse course was so bad it was funny. I said this to Ilana on our drive back to Aspen and she agreed it was bad, but as of then, wasn’t sure of the humor in it. My issue with the Reverse is that its problems appear to me to be entirely avoidable.
20204 Grand Traverse Reverse Course from 2024 Racer’s Manual.
The Route
The Reverse route just takes too much of the ‘ski’ out of a skimo course; and all the Elk Mountains out of the ‘Elk Mountain Grand Traverse’. The Grand Traverse has epic views, long stretches in the alpine, and long descents off Star Pass and Aspen Mountain, with an engaging downhill on Richmond Ridge as well. The Reverse keeps the slog, but takes away those carrots. The race kept the short downhill early on off the shoulder of CB, and gave racers a few hundred feet down Star Basin, but then the route was on a track for the most part. The end of the course did not even cut back to the ski area for a full lap, but rather cut in less than 500 ft above the finish. The route also reused a long middle section as an out and back and remains tucked in fairly nondescript woods. I felt like I could have been anywhere while on course. The tragedy here is that CB is surrounded by incredible terrain with endless possibilities. I know that the Grand Traverse takes an insane amount of work to put on and all effort goes to the primary course, but it feels like there would be several more interesting options that avoid avalanche hazard as alternatives. Maybe there is an additional loop the course could take into lower Pearl Basin or Deer Creek, or another loop up high in Star or Crystal Basin? Even had the course ended with a mad dash up and down the whole mountain back at CB, I would have been left with a better lingering taste. The Reverse is shorter than the Traverse as is, so adding to the current route would not make for unreasonable vert, distance, or time, but could make things more interesting. Even going back up CB the way we went down at the start would avoid the side hill up-down with skins on at the end. I don’t know the ins and outs of permitting or access issues in the area, and I know the race organizers have their hand full planning for the Traverse, but with the Reverse showing up once every five years or so, it would be interesting to see what alternatives could be worked out in the long term to make these years a bit more than an out and back.
The headlamp shuffle—Ilana Jesse with the kick and glide in the morning’s wee hours. Photo: Alex Lee
The Logistics
The GT logistics are a nightmare anyways. The Reverse makes it near impossible. I see little reason the race couldn’t make the call 24 hours in advance, or at least give updates on the decision as it’s made. This would give time to arrange a pick up, make other plans, rent cars, coordinate with other teams, and bail if needed. Instead racers are stuck with cars on the wrong side, hotel rooms in the wrong town, or paying for a shuttle they won’t use. There is little transparency on how or when the decision to Reverse was made, but the GT was posting pictures of race crew out on Taylor Pass and Barnard Hut (on the Aspen side of the course) leading up to the athlete meeting, which felt like a bait and switch to me. I know these things are dynamic and I am being a Monday morning quarterback, but they can do better. As was the case, we took the bus back to Gunnison after finishing, re-rented a car, and drove to Aspen to pick up the car we stashed. This took 15 hours from the race start.
Post Grand Reverse—still smiling after a bit over eight hours on course.
Okay, I got that out of my system, please forgive my winging… I still love the Grand Traverse. I still had fun on the Reverse. There is something beautiful about such a challenge; there may even be meaning and poetry in the stripped down grit that emerges from double poling and human experience laid bare skiing along an off camber snowmachine track at 5 am. You must LOVE skimo skiing to be there. Oscar Wilde once said that the only excuse for making a useless thing is to admire it intensely, that is how I feel about the GT. It’s long, it hurts, and it’s wonderful. My only excuse for racing it is to do it again.