{"id":804850,"date":"2020-03-03T17:51:10","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T00:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=379893"},"modified":"2020-03-03T17:51:10","modified_gmt":"2020-03-04T00:51:10","slug":"summit-duo-wins-power-of-four-ski-mountaineering-race-in-aspen-joins-fellow-locals-on-the-podium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/summit-duo-wins-power-of-four-ski-mountaineering-race-in-aspen-joins-fellow-locals-on-the-podium\/","title":{"rendered":"Summit duo wins Power of Four ski mountaineering race in Aspen, joins fellow locals on the podium"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Summit County locals Jill Seager, from left, and Kate Zander stand on the podium after winning the women’s division of the 10th annual Audi Power of Four ski mountaineering race Saturday in Aspen. At right is Aspen’s Jessie Young, who finished second along with Summit County local Nikki LaRochelle.<\/strong>
Austin Colbert \/ The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

ASPEN \u2014 After racing mile upon mile and several thousand feet of elevation gain Saturday, six of the world\u2019s best female ski mountaineers found themselves together in the same precarious spot: atop the 12,382-foot iconic summit of Highland Bowl.<\/p>\n

Hours into the grueling 25-mile, 11,600-foot-elevation-gain Audi Power of Four ski mountaineering race, the group of six \u2014 including Summit County locals Nikki LaRochelle, Jill Seager, Grace Staberg and Kate Zander \u2014 reached the top of Highland Bowl essentially tied. From there, they each pulled off their racing skins and dropped in, plunging into the race\u2019s next phase: thousands of feet of rip-roaring steep bowl skiing in the middle of one of the country\u2019s grandest and gnarliest skimo competitions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s something to be said for the level of competition in terms of us all being there right together,\u201d said Seager, a Silverthorne resident.<\/p>\n

In Highland Bowl, it was the team of Seager and Zander \u2014 dubbed \u201cGirls on the Run\u201d \u2014 who distanced themselves from the defending champs LaRochelle of Breckenridge and Jessie Young of Aspen as well as Silverthorne\u2019s Staberg and her partner Lindsay Plant of Carbondale.<\/p>\n

Seager and Zander skied to the bottom of the bowl first and followed that up with fast and furious skiing on what they described as a \u201clugey\u201d and \u201cspicy\u201d in-the-trees downhill portion of the race known as \u201cthe Congo.\u201d Zander said a race organizer told her just the night before that he was still clearing downed trees in the Congo.<\/p>\n

After exiting the Congo with a lead they felt confident about, Seager and Zander powered through the final uphill of the race, nearly 3,000 feet of climbing terrain known as \u201cMidnight Mine\u201d to the top of Aspen Mountain\u2019s resort before speeding down in-bounds terrain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first mile and a half of Midnight Mine was ice \u2014 frozen crud,\u201d Zander said. \u201cThen it was good snow toward the top. Super variable but could have been a lot worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the time they reached the base of Ajax in downtown Aspen \u2014 6 hours, 3 minutes and 24.37 seconds after they began \u2014 the Summit County duo not only won the Power of Four women\u2019s team title, it also won the 2020 U.S. Ski Mountaineering Association Women\u2019s Team Championship, as Saturday\u2019s race doubled as the association team title event.<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing down Highland Bowl was the pinnacle of the race,\u201d Seager said. \u201cKate and I, luckily, we skied it well and confidently. Then the Congo is just this very narrow type run, and Kate and I kind of borderline recklessly managed to hold on downhill. And truly the turning point in that race where we were able to separate from the rest of the field was the final climb. At Midnight Mine, Kate and I switched to our super short, fast racing skins and just looked at each other and said, \u2018We gotta go.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Though Girls on the Run finished about seven minutes ahead of LaRochelle and Young (6:10:06.87) and Staberg and Plant (6:14:33.58), at that late stage in the race, they still were afraid to look over their shoulders. The duo said that throughout the race, just when they thought they had created a gap between them and the reigning champs LaRochelle and Young, they\u2019d turn around and there LaRochelle and Young were at the transition, gearing up for the next phase right behind Seager and Zander.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are all friends and also really competitive people,\u201d Zander said. \u201cIt could have been anyone\u2019s day. It depends on a multitude of factors, and I think all of those went our way. Also, the pure grit and determination at the end \u2014 I really wanted a national championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

All that said, it was almost a race that didn\u2019t happen, in terms of Seager and Zander teaming up. For years, the two standout Summit County athletes have raced against each other at local ski mountaineering series, such as Arapahoe Basin Ski Area\u2019s Rise and Shine Rando Series and the Breck Ascent at Breckenridge Ski Resort. But Zander, a mother of two young children, says the hardest part of ski mountaineer racing for an athlete-mom like her is often just getting to the start line. Busy with raising her kids, helping to coach the Summit High School Nordic ski team and other responsibilities, Zander said \u201cno\u201d to Seager\u2019s requests to team up the first few times.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Zander decided to join. A Summit High graduate and a member of the 2019 U.S. Ski Mountaineering National Team that competed at the International Ski Mountaineering Federation World Championships in Switzerland, Zander said the duo\u2019s within-the-rules strategy of towing each other at times was teamwork that helped lead to the win.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told Jill at one point, if we don\u2019t break anything \u2014 ourselves or our skis \u2014 I think we\u2019ll do well,\u201d Zander said. \u201cIt was one of those days: If you have a mechanical (problem), you\u2019re out. The reason why I keep doing it, it\u2019s such a technical sport. You\u2019re always waiting to have a great technical race, and this was pretty near perfect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other top Summit County finishers at the Power of Four included national champion Tim Faia of Breckenridge, who with Dirk Friel of Boulder won the master\u2019s men (45 and older) race in a time of 6:20:49.37. In the senior co-ed race, Summit High senior Elsa Bates teamed with Elliott Bates to take second with a time of 6:35:01.37. And in the senior men\u2019s race, Ross Herr of Silverthorne teamed with Eric Poore of Boulder for a third-place finish (5:34:32.87).<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Summit County locals Jill Seager, from left, and Kate Zander stand on the podium after winning the women’s division of the 10th annual Audi Power of Four ski mountaineering race Saturday in Aspen. At right is Aspen’s Jessie Young, who finished second along with Summit County local Nikki LaRochelle.Austin Colbert \/ The Aspen Times ASPEN […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-804850","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-20 02:12:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804850\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}