One of them was Rick Chalmers, a 58-year-old carpenter from South Portland, Maine. And by the 14th lap, the field had been whittled down to 21. Moods seemed a little less happy and a lot more skeptical. “If I can’t keep talking people’s ears off on the way up, I’ll know I’m in trouble.”īy the tenth lap-ten hours and 10,000 vertical feet into the event-43 competitors remained. “I’m just going to keep it at a conversational pace, literally,” he said. After the first three laps-the first three hours and 3,000 vertical feet-all 61 racers on Black Mountain remained standing.Īmong the group was Adam Jaber, a 25-year-old skier from West Springfield, Massachusetts, known best within the outdoor industry for his Q-and-A-style podcast, Out of Bounds. Their backgrounds and strategies differed greatly, but everyone seemed to share the same loose-screw mentality. Others wore insulated jackets and heavy backpacks.

Some squeezed into tight skimo race suits.

They said we should absolutely do it, so we got to work and started planning this thing.” Participants lining up to compete in Last Skier Standing, held on February 15Īt the count of ten, the herd of 61 began moving up Black Mountain. But I didn’t dismiss it completely and brought it up with a couple of other friends. I didn’t think anyone would ever want to do that. “I said no-it seemed totally absurd to me. “One of the guys came to me and asked if I’d thought about doing this for skiing,” said Drummond. The race was fairly informal and drew a small crowd, but the feedback was consistently positive: every lap was a blast. Last July, Drummond held a Big’s Backyard look-alike contest on his parents’ 350-acre property. But perhaps even better known is his brand, Ski the Whites, which sells outdoor equipment and hosts weekly ski-mountaineering and running races. The organizer with the megaphone, Drummond, is a legend on the East Coast, well known for crushing ultramarathons and ski touring on Mount Washington. And ever since that race began, in 2012, its format has been replicated around the world many times over but never on snow-until Last Skier Standing was held on February 15. The current record is 68 laps, or 283.335 miles. At that race, runners complete a 4.166667-mile trail once per hour, meaning anyone who makes it 24 hours runs 100 miles. It was born through ultrarunning, specifically at a race known as Big’s Backyard in Bell Buckle, Tennessee. While innovative, the concept behind Last Skier Standing was not born at Black Mountain. One lap per hour, and the last skier standing wins. When those 60 minutes are over, they line up at the start and do it all over again, then again, and again, until they can’t do it anymore. This crazy event is called Last Skier Standing, and this is how it works: participants have 60 minutes to ascend and descend Black Mountain, which is roughly a thousand vertical feet. Be responsible, have fun, and thank you for coming to this crazy event.” “I think a lot of you will be surprising yourselves today, because this format is meant to really tap into that next level of what’s possible through pacing. “The whole idea of this event is to push yourself,” Andrew Drummond boomed, as his Australian shepherd wiggled through the crowd.

And a tall man in a red North Face expedition suit was pointing a megaphone straight at them. The small New Hampshire ski area was blanketed in sunlight, and guests meandered toward the green, chalet-style lodge, as if the thermometer didn’t read zero degrees Fahrenheit.īut just out of sight, on the far side of the lodge, a group of 61 people stood with their tips pointed uphill.

From the parking lot, it looked like a normal morning at Black Mountain.

Free standing ski rest