2025-04-05T07:00:00Z
Spring time in the North Cascades brings ski touring, mountaineering, rock climbing and mountain biking together within a 20 minute drive, making it easily possible to do several of those activities within the same day. Unbeknownst to us there was a large trail race event happening on the weekend we arrived. While biking around the single track trails of Sun Mountain we crossed paths with runners of all ages, shapes and size as they made their way through the landscape at a moderate and steady pace settling into the 50 miles race course. Throughout the day I gained a sense for the lay of the land and the course and thought covering the distance on foot seemed possible. I was inspired to get a pair of trail sneakers and giving it a go the following year.
I have poor running form and a history of injuring myself whenever I try to get into trail running and I would need to prepare myself for such a long day. Some quick google research suggested a 25 - 35 week training schedule with a lot of long distance runs sprinkled in. I knew I couldn’t carve out the time to do so this year (or next year for that matter) and needed to give up on this challenge.
Shortly after I’d let that idea go Mt.Cain posted a new event named “12 hours of pain” - a fundraiser for the ski patrol. The objective: see how many laps you can do on the lower lift in a 12 hour period either solo or in a team of two or four. “Race against yourself and not your friends” they said. Perfect - this was an endurance event I could tackle without 30 weeks of training, the only necessary preparation would be a race costume because it’s Mt. Cain. I estimated that ski touring to the top of the bottom lift and skiing back down should take about half an hour. Sustaining that for 12 hours would add up to 2 dozen laps. At roughly 200 metres of elevation that would add up to 4800 metres - this seemed an unreasonable number and I assumed about 18 laps.
Conditions were nearly ideal. It was mostly high cloud cover which kept the temperatures at bay. A bit of rain late in the afternoon threatened an uncomfortable end but it was short lived. The groomed uptrack is about as cruisy and efficient as it gets, a mostly gentle grade and not a single kickturn in sight and the ski down is a groomed blue run. The race organizers set up a cheerleader and hydration station at the top of the bottom lift. Mt Cain has a long tradition of events on the hill during and after skiing with the main focus being fun. True to form enthusiastic cheering was sustained for the entire 12 hours at the two transition stations at the top and bottom of the course.
I was curious to experience to what extent I could reduce stopping to faff around with food, drink and gear and hoped to reduce most of the stopping to the 2 transition points within every half hour loop. Despite drinking 4 litres of water I didn’t stop once to pee. A few hours in it became essential to stop for a sock change and duct tape for the heels. Apart from that I applied sunscreen three times and refilled my hydration bladder once - the remainder of the time was constant forward motion at a slightly exhilarated pace. At every transition at the upper station there were friendly offerings of food and drink which I gratefully refused for the longest time as I felt I had the necessities with me. After many hours my stomach was not enjoying the bits I was trying to add to it. “Warm veggie broth?” they offered and that sounded like a good idea. Sure enough it settled my stomach down and I requested more veggie broth at every lap until such time I could not remember the word for veggie broth and needed to resort to sign language for my request.
Luckily staff also kept track of our laps and I exceeded my estimate by far with 22 laps. This added up to over 4’700 metres of climbing and 63 km of distance (half of which is fast downhill skiing of course).
VIACC members were well represented winning lots of medals and most of the gold. James Craven won the men’s solo with an astonishing 25 laps - this will be a tough feat to beat and Huib DeRoo won bronze. Brianna Coates won the women’s solo and Rodney Newcome won the double team event with his team mate.
“Now I don’t have to do that again” was one of the first things I said to Shanda after the race but I have already forgotten the reasons for it.
