Another Successful Powder Keg

We survived another Powder Keg.  March 12 marked the 9th Annual Wasatch Powder Keg and our third Powder Keg as race directors.  Each year certain aspects of being a race director get easier and new surprises arise.  We  are lucky to have a fantastic host resort (Brighton) as well as close to 50 dedicated volunteers who show up at Brighton at 5:30 AM and spend up to 5 hours out on the mountain.  This  year marked the largest race to date with 141 registered racers.  I believe this makes the Powder Keg the largest ski mountaineering race in the US as well as the second oldest race.   Even more exciting was the exceptional talent at this years race.  We had some extremely fast people from Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, California and Colorado race.  It was exciting to get the check point reports at the fast times racers were coming through.  We had a busy finish line area this year with multiple sponsors, 3 groups promoting avalanche education and safety equipment, and a avalanche beacon search park.  We were excited to have so much going on as it helps make the Powder Keg an event rather than just a race.  Also exciting was the number of spectators.  Previous years have seen only a few spectators, but this year the finish area was full of people.  We hope that the popularity of this will bring more people out next year.

Race results are posted on the Powder Keg website.  Here are our overall division winners:

Division Racer Time
Men’s AT Race Luke Nelson 2:06:45
Women’s AT Race Michela Adiran 2:56:02
Men’s Tele Race Christopher Pond 2:47:30
Women’s Tele Race Sarah Jackson 3:10:06
Men’s AT Rec Nicholas Francis 1:50:13
Women’s AT Rec Anne Perry 1:59:41
Men’s Tele Rec Daichi Ito 2:01:40
Women’s Tele Rec Anna Knudsen 2:43:20
Men’s Splitboard Rec Tom Bender 1:52:33
Women’s Splitboard Rec Melissa Axen 2:45:03

We have a couple of great videos from Jim Hopkins and PCTV as well as lots of photos on the Wasatch Powder Keg Facebook page and our home page.

Thanks to all of our volunteers and sponsors and congratulations to all of our racers.