Adrenaline Rush At The Stowe Derby

by Rick Klein

Early on a snowy Sunday morning I dragged myself and Sky (photo left) out of bed and we headed for the Stowe Derby. We were joined at registration by around 550 other bleary eyed participants as we swam into the 64th annual ritual proceedings. The mood was celebratory laced with an air of anticipation especially with the uninitiated such as ourselves. Sky grabbed one of the first shuttle busses to the Mansfield base lodge as his start for freestyle began at 10 am on the top of the mountain. I followed a bit later for the noon start of the classic division.

After a ride up the chairlift I got my bearings and headed for the starting line where 5 skiers were launched every 30 seconds. I was 7 years old the last time I skied down the toll road and couldn’t quite recall the details of the pending descent but decided I would just go for it. Not long after my start I figured out how to efficiently negotiate the turns on the top of the course and coupled with frequent tucking I began weaving my way through lines of skiers. This was probably the most fun I had the whole race until I went wide on one of the lower turns and got caught up in the heavy snow which catapulted me into a forward flip bouncing off my head and onto my butt. After a few choice expletives and a mental body check I jumped up and “headed” on down the mountain.

After maybe 5 miles of adrenaline rush it was onto 3 miles of winding through the well groomed and tracked trails of the Mt. Mansfield Touring Center with a long slog uphill to the final chute out onto the flats. After gliding out into a cornfield the 4 mile mostly double-poling marathon to the finish along the bike path began. We followed the river for the most part which meant there was a slight and steady downward grade all the way to the finish with 4 or 5 pedestrian bridges along the way. By the time the church steeple came into view I was pretty wasted but managed to “hup, hup” it to the finish where Sky met me. We exchanged race stories and headed to the awards ceremony for a well deserved pint, food and viewing of videos of the race.

I’ll definitely be there for the 65th running next year and would love to be joined by a crowd of Frosty’s. New this year was a team division which added a fun dimension and ought to include an FMN entry.