Cross-country skiers at the inaugural Bull Mountain Blast on Sunday didn’t let temperatures reaching –23 C dampen their spirits.
In fact, organizer Ivor McMahen said it was quite the opposite.
“Almost everybody showed up,” McMahen said. “Even the out-of-towners. No one was in favour of cancelling it and no one was whining about the cold.”
In total, 44 skiers (including nine juniors) took part in the race — a participation oriented event based on the popular mountain biking enduro format.
Participants, who came from Williams Lake, Prince George, 100 Mile House and Quesnel, entered as solo competitors or as part of two-person teams to race in the event.
“Originally it was going to be a four-hour race,” McMahen said. “But we shortened it to three hours instead because of the weather. It actually turned out to be extremely popular — not just because of the cold — because it turned out to be a better time frame. It was actually kind of serendipitous that we had to change it because it worked out better.”
Participants in the race were tasked with completing as many laps of the eight-kilometre course as they felt comfortable with. In the end, laps and lap times were tallied to determine the winners.
Skiers who participated as a team also skied simultaneously on the course due to the cold, so no one was left standing around for long periods of time.
“Most people found the temperature quite comfortable for skiing,” he said.
“They said the cold wasn’t really a factor in their skiing.”
McMahen also added all of the feedback he received on, to his knowledge, the first cross-country ski race ever to use the enduro format, was all good.
“The course was really well groomed and the feedback was 100 per cent positive,” he said. “No one heard a single grumble about it so I’m quite thrilled with how its turned out in the end.
“This was the first, but hopefully not the last.”
Local results for the Bull Mountain Blast are as follows:
• Men’s Team over 95 — Leo Rankin and Glen Davidson (six laps in 2:23:10 first); Shawn Salmon and Dick Whitman (six laps in 2:46:06, second)
• Mixed Team over 95 — Jan Schmid and Ernie Schmid (six laps, first); Denise Skarra and Scott Gordon (three laps, second)
• Women’s Team 66-95 — Niki Brandson and Bobbie Lindemark (six laps, first); Jacinta D’Andrea and Angela Gutzer (two laps, second)
• Men’s Team 66-95 — Mark Savard and Dwayne Chamberlain (six laps, first)
• Mixed Team 0-65 — Julia Rook and Colton Fraser (two laps in 1:15:22, first); Alex Pfaneuf and Emma Davidson (two laps in 1:15:34, second); Dana Rook and Tom Dalton (two laps in 1:32:53, third)
• Solo Female 0-40 — Nicole LeBlanc (two laps, second)
• Solo Male 0-40 — Brent Morton (two laps, third)
• Solo Female over 40 — Ann Carter (four laps, first); Joan Lozier (two laps, fifth)
• Solo Male over 40 — Stewart Bell (three laps, sixth); George Cornett (three laps, seventh).
