It's a powdery start for the State Snowshoe Championships this year! All photos by Stan Lambros.
The Colorado High School Snowshoe State Championships course at Summit High School near Frisco, CO, has been home to many great stories in its five years. 2014 will go down as one of the most memorable. Summit County has received nearly 48 inches of new snow the last three weeks on top of the previous 250 inches they already had. At least 12 inches of snow fell on the course from the Friday before the race to the end of the event. Stomping the course out has been impossible at best, but a one lane track was carved deep into the white blanket around Summit High.
Smoky Hill High School was caught in a traffic mess on I-70. What would the race be without one of the original three teams? A tough decision had to be made: the race had to be delayed 45 minutes to allow everyone to get to Summit High School safely.
It was 10:30, everyone was ready and antsy. Smoky Hill had just walked into the school. They got their racing gear and bibs on and were as ready as they could be. They had a full team of boys and girls and were looking to get their very first title. Newcomer Monarch High School sent one lone runner, Anna Hogan, to battle the powder. Lakewood was represented by two fierce competitors. Their team was split between ACTs and indoor track. Summit just barely had a full team of Lady Tigers. Their third runner, Jessica Horii, almost didn’t make it home from a varsity basketball game in Rifle the night before. Cheyenne Mountain had a full team of boys and two girls ready to stomp the snow and were ready to face their snowshoe rivals: Summit and Smoky Hill.
At 10:45, as the gun shot rang as loud as the avalanche cannons booming all around the county, the racers blasted down the snow packed road and headed north of Summit High along the rec path. They were greeted by a wall of snow. Watching the runners dig through the trenches of the course was truly impressive. The first runners came through the first mile in 12 minutes, well off the blistering pace set by Windsor’s Justin Weinmeister the year before. Last year’s race was more of a trail run than a snowshoe race. This year, snowshoes were an absolute necessity.
As the racers headed south into the long lasting hill and winding trail through sage brush and willows, leaders broke free of the pack. Passing was nearly impossible. Snowshoe racing etiquette was used more often than not, however; brave runners did take the plunge off the single track trail to pass one another. Falling in face first was common, but the few complaints were only heard from the 10K racers as they headed back out to repeat the course.
Looking at last year’s race results, one name stuck out more than anyone else’s: McKenna Ramsay. Her attempt to win a second straight title and help lead her team to another state title was a big storyline. Her quest for a title was something that Monarch’s Anna Hogan (photo, above, by Stan Lambros) was up to taking on. Hogan used her strength and power in the deep powder to overtake the snowshoe veteran, and win another state title in her already storied career at Monarch. McKenna finished fourth, fighting off illness throughout the race. She was preceded by Summit’s Emily Pappas and Madison Lambros of Cheyenne Mountain. Madison passed McKenna on the homestretch with a near photo finish at the end. The race was tight; only about one minute and 30 seconds separated the top four girl runners.
On the boy’s side, it was a race up for grabs with last year’s top three racers either graduating or taking the ACTs. Overlooking Cheyenne Mountain’s Matt Fox (photo, above, by Stan Lambros) was something that shouldn’t have taken place, but it did. The sophomore was fourth last year, and it should have been obvious that he could jump in as the front runner. He did just that, winning the race by about 35 seconds over Smoky’s senior runner, Ryan Parker. The senior was followed by Tristan Myers of Cheyenne Mountain, and Cody Miller of Smoky Hill. Cody Miller’s snowshoes flew off at the beginning of the race and he started in last place. Perseverance is definitely a quality he possesses, and he cranked for the rest of the race, picking off nearly the entire field. It was awesome to see. The boys were packed even more tightly than the girls with only 1:10 separating the first runner through the fourth.
In the team competition, Summit sneaked away with a win, followed closely by Smoky Hill. Although McKenna Ramsay didn’t repeat as individual champion, she did repeat as a member of the team championship. Cheyenne Mountain won the boys’ team title, followed closely by Smoky Hill. It was great having Lakewood return to join Summit, Cheyenne Mountain, and Smoky Hill. It will be interesting to see if Monarch will return to the meet next year with a cast as strong as Anna Hogan.
Although the course was the toughest it has ever been, the racers had big smiles at the post-race lunch. What will happen in 2015? Only time will tell, but looking at these runners in the spring of 2014 will be something special throughout the track season. These runners are tough, strong, and ready to face any adversity that comes their way in the track season.