from www.denverpost.com - december 27, 2005

24 Hours race: good test for good cause

By John Meyer

Denver Post Staff Writer

Imagine competing on a relay team in a race in which Lance Armstrong pushes himself to extremes for 24 hours. Imagine watching him explore the limits of elite human performance even as you confront your own.

Switch the sport to skiing and you have the general idea behind the 24 Hours of Sunlight, which will take place at the Sunlight ski area Feb. 11-12. Canadian Greg Hill, who set the 24-hour world record last year by climbing and skiing 40,000 vertical feet, will attempt to break his record.

You can participate as a solo entry or in relay teams of two, four or five. Just be sure you understand this is not a lift-assisted adventure. You will be skinning up about 1,500 vertical feet on each lap.

Creator Mike Marolt of Aspen got the idea from the defunct 24 Hours of Aspen, an event that mostly attracted former ski racers who rode to the summit on the Aspen Mountain gondola and descended in a downhill tuck.

" The problem I had with that event was that it was so limited," Marolt said. "You could only have about 10 people in the race. It was an endurance event, but it was kind of a hybrid downhill race. This race, people can participate. We'll take as many people as we can get signed up for it."

Marolt, an accomplished ski mountaineer, also was inspired by the highly successful 24 Hours of Moab bike race.

" You drive about 10 miles south of Moab and on any given day, you look at this piece of real estate that's just desert, nothing for miles around," Marolt said. "Every year when this race comes to town, the desert turns into this 5,000-person village with people racing around."

Marolt, who will be competing in the solo division of his brainchild, believes the race can attract 400 to 500 participants in its first year and grow into a major event like Moab.

Sunlight is an ideal place for it because it's a small, personal and unpretentious area that can really embrace the event. Relay team participants can hole up in lodging at the Sunlight base or in a tent village when it's not their turn on the mountain. Most will have support crews who cook and roust nappers out of their sleeping bags when it's their turn to go.

Marolt guesses the average entrant will be able to complete a lap in 60 to 90 minutes. That breaks down to four or five laps per person for the relay teams.

Then there's Hill, who skied 1 million vertical feet last season without uphill assistance.

He set his 24-hour record on backcountry slopes near his home in British Columbia and hopes to hit 50,000 at the Sunlight event.

" It will be great to be in a controlled environment and see what can be done in 24 hours," said Hill, 30. "I've always thought if you want to see what the vertical limit is, it's got to be in the controlled environment the ski hill is going to provide. Where I was (for 40,000), the weather was changing, the skin track was getting blown in, and it was powder skiing."

Marolt has descents on major peaks in the Andes and the Himalayas - in 2003 he skied from 25,000 feet on Mount Everest with his twin brother, Steve - but he's blown away by Hill's endurance.

" It's off the charts," Marolt said. "I've never heard of anyone getting anywhere close to 40,000 vertical feet. It really is amazing."

But this event isn't only about super-endurance athletes and wannabes doing something really difficult just to show how tough they are. It's also about people who barely can ski at all.

Jimmie Heuga, the 1964 Olympic slalom bronze medalist who has multiple sclerosis, is a family friend of Marolt's. Marolt's uncle, Bill Marolt, is president of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association and was on the Olympic team with Heuga.

Mike Marolt serves on the board of the Heuga Center of Avon, which helps victims of MS. The 24 Hours of Sunlight is being staged as a benefit for the Heuga Center.

" You'd have to be insane to go out and put on a race like this for no reason," Marolt said. "I want people to have a good time, and they don't need to dwell on MS. What I want to tell these people is, 'When you're out there at 3 in the morning and you're suffering as much as you can suffer in this life, just remember there are people who would give anything to be able to do what you're doing. You go home, take a shower and get a good night's sleep. These people, they get up in the morning and they have (MS) every day. There's no cure."'