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travel / great places / explorer / nd06
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Canadian Ski Marathon
Packing Light
What should you pack for the longest ski race in the world?
Well you could strap extra ski poles to your backpack, squeeze
in an extra ski tip and even find a nook for that wooly sweater.
You could do all that and feel pretty good about yourself
at the starting line. Unfortunately, loading up all but guarantees
you won't make it to the finish.
"Everything that can go wrong will go wrong," says
Greg Koegl, vice-president of the Canadian Ski Marathon."If
it happens to be a piece of equipment [that breaks], you adjust
and make do. But strapping yourself full of extra equipment
isn't worth it."
As the second day drags on, that extra 10 pounds of equipment
you packed at the last minute feels nothing like it did at
the start of the race. Koegl knows the feeling, having failed
to finish the race one year because extra bulk slowed him
down, preventing him from reaching a key checkpoint on the
first day.
At various points through the race, participants can pick up
spare equipment, but those checkpoints are of little help in
the middle of the bush. Koegl says the racers who reach the finish
line are the ones who adapt and focus on the mental struggle.
"You're putting your body through absolute torture
for eight hours, then sleeping outside in freezing temperatures
and getting up to do the next thing the next day," Koegl
says. "For what? A gold pin? That takes a special kind
of person."
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