Vertfest: “The Premier Northwest Celebration of Human Powered Skiing”
A History

Lock Miller at the 2003 race. PC Rich Bennett

The history of Vertfest and skimo racing in the United States is inextricably tied with the progression of the Dynafit “tech” binding spreading across the Atlantic in the early 1990s. At the time, the tele ski ruled the land while AT (Alpine Touring) was the fringe sport. While Lock Miller, of the Bellevue company Marmot Mountain Works, was the first to import the new Dynafit Tourlite Tech in 1993, by the early 2000s, the backcountry safety company Life-Link was the main US distributor. At first view, the unconventional and fragile looking binding did not inspire confidence and was slow to catch on. Life-link owner John Scott wanted a way to demonstrate the significant weight savings and reliability of the new fangled tech binding, and how it could improve not only speed but also the experience. Based out of Jackson Hole, John directed the first uphill ski race there in the US in 2000, called the Life-link/Dynafit Randonnée Rally.

Randonnée, or rando, races, were all the rage over in Europe at the time. The Euros had fully accepted the lightweight Dynafit bindings and were developing techniques to quicken their transitions to unbelievable speeds. Andrew McLean, working for Black Diamond, had been over in Europe and was blown away when he saw how fast the racers could climb. Back in the US the next year, Andrew teamed up with John and helped at the Jackson Hole race as well as starting Powder Keg in Utah.

Andrew and John had big plans for 2002. They expanded the rando series all across the west with races in Kirkwood, Mad River Glen, Jackson Hole, Alpental, and Whistler. Lifelink made contact with interested local parties like Martin Volken who could help organize races with interested ski resorts. Andrew and his wife Polly would travel around to all the races and help them understand exactly how a rando rally worked. A lot of races first attempted to have very loose formats such as self navigation with gates to hit, mid race beacon searches, freeride competitions on the descent, and backcountry safety quizzes admistered verbally at the finish. With his experience in the Euro racing circuit, Andrew was able to help standardize the individual, team, and sprint formats in the US.

Martin and guides from his company, Pro Guiding Service, helped develop the first course for the 2002 Alpental race held on March 31: “The race route leads up in the ski area to the out of bounds gate, across the Great Scott Traverse, climbs Piss Pass and downhill ski the Great Scott Bowl. Then, skins back on and reverse the course. For the Elite category racers, the course will include the Rec. category course, then skin to Source Lake, skin up to Pineapple Pass, ski down the Great Scott Bowl, skin up to Piss Pass and across the Great Scott Traverse, then to the finish line via the ski area. $35 race entry and $20 lift ticket.” The Pass received a huge dump of snow just for race morning, and without a defined skin track, all the racers were breaking trail themselves. Then, at the top, all the skinny skis got crushed by the heavier gear on the downhill! Marmot Mountain Works also assisted as the main retail partner, donating gear prizes and helping run the event. Petra Pirc won the Women’s Division while Andrew himself took home top honors at the mountain where he learned to ski.

Trevor Kostonick, the Summit of Snoqualmie’s Planning and Development Director at the time, led the charge to sell the race to ski area management. A race as ambitious as this would require quite a bit of resources from Patrol, Marketing, and many other departments. Many of the older decision makers at the time were not backcountry enthusiasts and did not see the value of an uphill race, but Trevor was able to bridge the gap and helped coordinate logistics to make the first year happen. Skimo was still very fringe back then (still is!) and a lot of the younger Summit employees could sense the backcountry boom that was coming. Since then, the Summit has been a great supporter in their role of hosting the region’s main touring festival right in the Alpental valley.

Over the next few years, Life-link expanded even further out, adding races at Stevens Pass, Alpine Meadows, and Crested Butte. Andrew continued to travel around to help with each event, but after a few years the workload became too much. He concentrated on developing Powder Keg while each race continued to be organized by locals like Martin. Dynafit continued to support the races with fantastic gear prizes and cash. Dynafits and compatible boots with pin holes were still very difficult to find in the US. Podiuming a rando race would first win you a pair of bindings, then a pair of boots, then a pair of skis. This would drastically cut your race times and people noticed how well this gear was working not only in a race setting, but could also work well in the backcountry. Quickly the tech binding became the preferred option and boot manufacturers started to get on board with adding pin holes.

However, Life-link was not doing that well as a company. Their smattering of gear offerings was hard to market and the growth of Dynafit was necessitating a larger distributor. Martin Volken had been organizing the randonnée rally at Alpental for a few years by himself before Outdoor Research became interested in taking the production over. Outdoor Research had recently been purchased by Dan Nordstron after the founder, Ron Gregg, died in an avalanche in 2003. Primarily a “gaiters and glove” company, Dan saw the vision to revamp the brand to focus on backcountry travel. Martin had a close relationship with OR as a sponsored athlete and realized the race needed more resources than his guide service could support, and a partnership was born.

Dan’s renaissance of the brand focused around his marquee event, now a series branded “Vertfest”, a celebration of backcountry VertiCulture. According to OR: VertiCulture (n): The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns of human powered adventurers; a predisposition to engage mountainous, vertically oriented terrain with a variety of tools in all seasons. His connections at Crystal Mountain allowed the event to expand to a race there in 2007, Telefest at Hyak, the biggest race at Alpental. The Crystal race continued for two more years before organizational hurdles caused that race to be eliminated from the schedule.

Kaj Bune, OR’s Director of Brand Development, and later Christian Folk, Director of Marketing, turned Vertfest from just a rando race into an entire festival with clinics, vendors, demos, beer, live music, and of course, the climax was the race. At its peak, the Vertical Festival was a 2.5 day event starting Friday night and not finishing until the beer garden closed after the race on Sunday. “Rando racing” itself was starting to transition into a more serious version called “skimo” and lycra started appearing at races more and more. The Vertfest brand was expanded to other ski resorts as well. OR started the Bachelor Vertfest in 2012, which is still being directed by the Central Oregon Avalanche Center, and partnered with the Powder Keg in Utah.

Monika Johnson, MRNP 2005. PC Greg Louie

In February 2011, Monika Johnson died when she broke through a cornice at the summit of Red Mountain, just up valley from Alpental. Monika was the “Queen of the Pacific Northwest Backcountry” as both an avid skier and fast racer with multiple wins at Vertfest under her belt. Her passing had a profound effect on the local backcountry community, and as a tribute, many 2011 Vertfest participants raced with a stuffed kitty on their pack, just like Monika did after she had a friend pass in an avalanche in 2002. Future iterations of the race were named the Monika Johnson Memorial Rally Race.

Traslin brothers placing 1st and 2nd in 2011. PC Greg Louie

As OR’s mission with the race was to grow community and connect to the consumer; a big focus of the race was raising funds for the Northwest Avalanche Center. At the time, NWAC was a much smaller organization with only three core forecasters. Outdoor Research was very generous with organizing a barely profitable race while still donating five digit amounts to NWAC each season. They also raised donations to NWAC through the infamous gear raffle with donated gear from sponsors. Around the early teens, the OR Marketing team remembered they were a clothing company and not a festival company and realized they didn’t have the proper resources to be the main organizer of the event. They were happy to sponsor but needed help. As the main benefactor, NWAC stepped up and fully took the reigns in 2015.

The revenue brought in from Vertfest was a large portion of NWAC’s annual budget. Between sponsorships, vendors, race entries, and the raffle, the race regularly brought in over $20K annually for the center. In 2014 and 2015, a local Subaru rep who was a skier sold the event to Subaru corporate and came on board with a $15,000 donation to title sponsor the Subaru Vertfest Tour! Scott Schell had just come on board as the center’s Executive Director and helped lead the next phase of the event. They continued the tradition of making Vertfest their marquee on snow winter event, but the realities soon set in that they were an avalanche forecasting agency, not an event management company. Coordinating with so many different entities (NWAC, Pro Guiding, Patrol, Summit Marketing, OR and other brands) took a vast amount of resources NWAC did not have available and started looking for another event producer in 2018.

Richard Kresser caught the skimo bug after racing the Mountaineers Patrol Race in 2016. He was a trail race series race director and ski patroller and figured he could combine his event and ski experience and create a few more skimo style races in the area. SnowGoat Skimo was formed in 2018 with his wife Maudie Jordan helping Volunteer Coordinate and Westy Ford as the Course Manager. NWAC saw potential to have SnowGoat be the next caretaker of the event and gifted the race and brand to carry it forward. SnowGoat chose to constrict again and just focus on the race component of the event. In 2022, the race gained USA Skimo sanctioning, the first race along the West Coast to gain the accreditation and was a National Cup event in 2023.

Our series has grown exponentially in the past six years. We formed a new Crystal Mountain race for 4 years before our permit fee grew exorbitantly and we were forced to cancel the race. Finally, in 2024 we have a full schedule of races of all types: a locals Friday night series, two premier events with individuals, verticals, and sprints race formats, and an aspirational graduate level season finale race. We have formed into a 501c3 nonprofit called Skimo Northwest, a collective of race directors and organizers who are driven by the passion of this crazy sport. Vertfest carries along strong into its next chapter, as Richard phases out as the Head Race Director and Rich Bennett (who has been helping out since 2003!) takes over at the helm.

One thing that has struck this author is how Vertfest over the years was one of the only events where the backcountry community could really gather together on snow. Ski touring is not typically a solo sport, but it does not lend itself well as a large group activity either. Small fairly isolated groups will tour together, and breaking into the community is difficult if you are new to the sport. NWAC does a fantastic job mustering the passionate backcountry enthusiasts with preseason events like NSAW and Snowbash, but those are all “city” events. Vertfest and now other skimo races are events where like minded individuals can gather, push their personal boundaries, suffer together, and then share their stories and laugh over beers after. Events are where you can build the community, break out of your isolated touring group to meet new partners, and gives you something different to train for when it’s tough to roll out of bed for that dawn patrol.

Thank you to all the past organizers, racers, volunteers, brand partners, and host ski resorts. Special shoutout to some of the “behind the scenes” organizers who do the super non glamorous duties to make them happen: Sam Kilgore, Ben Haskell, and Charlotte Guard. Thank you for the time to interview Martin Volken, Andrew McLean, Kaj Bune, Christian Folk, Trevor Kostanich, and Scott Schell. Thanks to Lowell Skoog and Jeff Huber for helping me snoop around the internet and find all the historic Vertfest results (except that lost 2008 Alpental year no one can find!).

Seth and Holly Davis at Vertfest 2011.
PC Jason Hummel

Lastly, after all the results were tabulated, the question was: Who had won Vertfest more times than anyone else over the past 19 years? The Traslin brothers, Andy (four wins, 2nd x6 times) and Mike (2nd thrice, 3rd twice), dominated the first decade of racing with x12 finishes each. Monika Johnson was undefeated with five wins in the five races she attended before her passing. In the most finishes category, Aaron Ostrovsky (x10), Lowell Skoog (x11), Scott Harder (x12), David and Anne Marie Stonich (both x12), and Chris Guzak (x14) all broke the 10+ finishes barrier. However, Queen and King of Vertfest is aptly awarded to another husband wife duo in Holly and Seth Davis (both x16 finishes). Holly has x4 1st place finishes and two 2nd places as well. Not only do they take home top awards, but they also have continued to dominate the field for over two decades. They were on the podium in 2003 and also in 2023!