{"id":2455369,"date":"2020-03-04T20:48:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T03:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/gleason-creator-of-steamboats-high-school-nordic-program-retires-after-decades-of-volunteering\/"},"modified":"2020-03-04T20:48:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T03:48:00","slug":"gleason-creator-of-steamboats-high-school-nordic-program-retires-after-decades-of-volunteering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/gleason-creator-of-steamboats-high-school-nordic-program-retires-after-decades-of-volunteering\/","title":{"rendered":"Gleason, creator of Steamboat\u2019s high school Nordic program, retires after decades of volunteering"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Pat Gleason wears glitter on his cheeks, matching the Steamboat Springs High School Nordic ski team athletes at the State Skiing Championships at Maloit Park on Feb. 28 and 29. After about 20 years of volunteering with the team, Gleason is retiring.<\/strong>
Hager family\/courtesy photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

STEAMBOAT SPRINGS \u2014 Twenty years ago, Pat Gleason and Barry Smith created the Steamboat Springs High School Nordic ski team. Gleason, 67, has always been involved with the team, volunteering to assist the Sailors and becoming their wax master.<\/p>\n

After decades with the team, Gleason has decided to retire.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou start getting older, it gets harder to get around. Race day, it\u2019s extremely demanding. Every minute is counted for,\u201d Gleason said. \u201cPhysically, my knees have gone to hell. It makes it tough to get out and do things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gleason skied for the Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club before competing collegiately at the University of Wyoming, or the \u201cHarvard of the West,\u201d as he called it. So, his knees have seen their fair share of work.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s been skiing less and less the last couple years,\u201d said high school Nordic head coach Jesse Wilkins. \u201cNow, most of the time he doesn\u2019t even put skis on anymore. But I don\u2019t think that detracts from his value as a coach.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Wilkins took over the team four years ago and learned Gleason had been volunteering this whole time, he offered to pay him.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said, \u2018You couldn\u2019t pay me what I\u2019m worth,\u2019\u201d Wilkins said. \u201cI believe that now. He\u2019s been skiing and waxing for three to four decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Steamboat native, Gleason has been a part of the community in almost every major way possible, holding positions on the SSWSC board of directors, Steamboat Springs School Board and Steamboat Springs City Council. Most recently, he\u2019s been in charge of waxing the Sailors\u2019 skis, which requires him to get on the snow before a race to evaluate the conditions and then apply the appropriate amount of wax.<\/p>\n

His knowledge began developing in the late \u201970s when he coached ski jumping for the SSWSC. He helped the cross country coach, and the cross country coach helped him. Every year since, Gleason has learned more and more about wax.<\/p>\n

His knowledge was needed at this year\u2019s state championships, where there was rapidly warming weather.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would change from one wax to another in a period of 30 to 45 minutes. What you try to do is outguess what is going to happen in two hours to get it right,\u201d Gleason said. \u201cIn the temperature range we were skiing on Thursday, I have probably a combination of 25 to 30 different waxes that you can use in that temperature range. It depends on snow temperature and humidity. It depends on how long the snow has been on the ground. It depends on sunshine. It\u2019s not a science. It\u2019s an art.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, on the first day of the state championships, Gleason was under the weather, leaving Wilkins and assistant Wil Chapple to figure out how to wax the skis. The two are familiar with waxing but not to the same extent as Gleason. It was even more difficult for the pair since the classic race was that day. Wilkins said one of the hardest thing he has to do is nail a classic ski kick wax.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter that day was over, (Gleason) basically said, \u2018Good job. You guys got it,\u2019\u201d Wilkins said. \u201cThat was nice to get that shot of confidence from Pat. He\u2019s been working all season as Wil and I try to transfer most of what he knows. We\u2019ll never get everything he knows, but we can get pretty close.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gleason\u2019s favorite part of coaching was experiencing race day, especially since it brought back memories of when he was the one lining up at the start. Now, he does everything but race on race days.<\/p>\n

\u201cI run it,\u201d Gleason said. \u201cThere\u2019s so many different things that have to be done. You have to have somebody manage the team, pay entry fees, verify the race course, go to the team leaders meeting, those types of things. I get on the snow, I do the waxing and deal with the start and finish areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team is in good hands though, as Wilkins and Chapple led one of the largest and most successful group of skiers this winter, and Gleason knows they are more than capable of carrying on his duties in the future.<\/p>\n

The veteran isn\u2019t totally vanishing, though. He hopes to remain somewhat attached to the program.<\/p>\n

Gleason said the city is in the process of potentially replacing the Barrows lift on Howelsen Hill, as well as the yurt at the base of it, out of which the high school Nordic team operates. Gleason hopes to be heavily involved in that discussion and lobby for the yurt to be replaced with a building that the team can use in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I have the pull,\u201d Gleason said. \u201cI think I may have a little bit of some background, some information to get what the program needs over there.\u201d<\/p>\n

sreardon@steamboatpilot.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pat Gleason wears glitter on his cheeks, matching the Steamboat Springs High School Nordic ski team athletes at the State Skiing Championships at Maloit Park on Feb. 28 and 29. After about 20 years of volunteering with the team, Gleason is retiring.Hager family\/courtesy photo STEAMBOAT SPRINGS \u2014 Twenty years ago, Pat Gleason and Barry Smith […]<\/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":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2455369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 12:15:33","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":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}