Greenfield native and ConVal alum Pier Pennoyer is excited to see “SkiMo,” or Ski Mountaineering, in the Winter Olympics this year.
Pennoyer, who now lives in Jackson, has been competing in SkiMo for six years and is headed to the national championships in March.
“It’s pretty cool to see SkiMo in the Olympics this year, because the last time the sport was in the Olympics was in the 1950s, and that was also the last time the Olympics were in Bormio,” site of the Milan-Cortina Olympic skiing events, Pennoyer said. “It’s a huge sport in the Alps, and it’s really centered there — particularly around Chamonix — but it’s also starting to catch on in the U.S.”
Pennoyer, who grew up ski racing at Crotched Mountain and Mount Sunapee, has competed in several endurance sports, including cycling and long-distance running. He says SkiMo is an offshoot of ski touring, in which Nordic skiers race up and downhill on cross-country skis.
“SkiMo is kind of a ridiculous sport; you’re running uphill in spandex with skis on your back,” he said. “But we really hope people will find that the sport is fun to watch, and we hope the fact that it’s in the Olympics will get more people interested in maybe trying it out. It’s an amazing community.”
SkiMo events take place at downhill ski areas, with competitors racing uphill on Nordic skis, running a short distance with their skis on their backs, and then skiing down an Alpine slope.
“It will be interesting to see the reaction of Americans and what they think after seeing the sport on primetime,” Pennoyer said. “Most people aren’t aware of it.
Pennoyer was first exposed to SkiMo when the business where he worked, White Mountain Ski Company in Jackson, started hosting Friday night SkiMo races during the pandemic.
He is surprised SkiMo has not taken off more in New England because it’s a great way to stay in shape and enjoy the outdoors.
“The cool thing is you can work with a tiny mountain and just do laps on it. A lot of people from Boston actually go out and train at Mount Wachusett. Even in bad conditions, you can still get out there,” he said. “New England should really be a center for SkiMo.”
The U.S. SkiMo team will compete in a mixed relay event at Bormio on Saturday, Feb. 21. The uphill portion of the race is known as “skinning, ” after the synthetic strips athletes attach to their skis to get uphill traction on the snow.
“They used to use sealskin, but now it’s a synthetic material with adhesive,” Pennoyer said. “The boots are glorified hiking boots. They are very soft, and they lock down for descent mode. You’re going uphill for 90% of the event, and it’s all about being light and fast.”
The uphill sprint on skins is followed by the “transition,” where racers remove their skis, attach them to their backpacks, and run to the start of the downhill course.
Pennoyer said a lot of athletes get interested in SkiMO to cross-train for other endurance sports, such as trail running and long-distance cycling.
“The uphill portion is pure fitness; it’s how fast you can skin up. The downhill portion is about having the confidence to ski downhill on these tiny little Nordic skis,” he said. “For me, it helped that I grew up skiing in New England in all kinds of tough conditions.”
In the downhill race, skiers go around gates, similar to Nordic race sprints.
“You don’t go straight down. You go around the gates and you can do that several times in a longer event. You’re moving really quick,” he said.
While the SkiMo sprint events take only a few minutes, longer events, such as the ones Pennoyer typically competes in, can take an hour or more.
Pennoyer said personally, he finds the transition to be the toughest part of the sport.
“First, you’re running uphill in your ski boots for 50 to 100 feet, then you put your skis on your backpack, then you put skis back on, skin another 100 feet, then you transition again. You rip the skins off, put them in pockets in the front of your suit, then you lock your boots down and ski downhill,” he said. “The transitions are super quick, and you have to be meticulously quick and clean. With the sprints, the whole event is just a few minutes, so if you’re taking 45 seconds on your transition, that really hurts your time.”
Pennoyer said the sport is “sort of NASCAR-like.”
“It’s very fast, there can be crashes. It can be really fun to watch,” he said. “People will be blown away by how fast and smooth these transitions are. It’s like, what the heck, this person was just going uphill and now they’re going downhill.”
Pennoyer said that like any equipment-intensive sport, there can be “some luck involved.”
“If you get snow in your skies, or the glue starts to fail on the skins, that can really mess you up,” he said.
While Pennoyer has had a lot of success on the New England SkiMo circuit, he downplays his upcoming trip to the nationals at Solitude Resort in Utah’s Wasatch Range.
“It’s really about who was willing to sign up and make the trip to Utah. This is my first year going all in with races, so we’ll see what happens,” he said. “It’s just a lot of fun.”