UAF head ski coach Eliska Albrigtsen watched the course get fitted into the hillside last summer, and hoped it would great for training.
“I think it's exceeding expectations.”
She gets excited talking about it, because of the way it is designed.
“When we started to ski on them for like the first two weeks, I would just -- my eyes would water just with happiness because, they're built with so much understanding of what we do as skiers,” Albrigtsen said.
The new course is certified for FIS (International Ski and Snowboard Federation) races. So today and tomorrow, UAF will host the Alaska Nordic Cup.
“This is the first collegiate cross-country ski race on the UAF campus in over 40 years,” said Assistant coach Benjamin Buck.
He noted the last time an intercollegiate competition was held on the UAF Campus was 1985. He learned of the long history of ski racing at UAF, where it was dominant before the trails at Birch Hill were developed.
“And so, to see it return just feels really, really cool. Even not being from Fairbanks, I can just feel the energy around it,” Buck said.
The course was designed by former Olympic skier John Estle and constructed by Jon Underwood and his company, Happy Trails Inc. and there’s a story behind that.
“I guess a little over a year ago now, I was spectating the Beat Beethoven 5K, along with John Estle and I asked him a seemingly innocuous question, whether he thought it would be possible to host a ski race on the UAF campus,” Buck said.
People like Estle had been thinking about the south slope off the front of the university on Tanana Loop for a long time.
“It was how can we build a world-class skiing facility on this hillside,” Buck said.
“And so we got to talking and, um, I guess in a very short period of time, we built up some momentum and pitched the idea to the Usibelli Coal Mine Foundation, and they were also very enthusiastic about it, and so, here we are, hosting the first races.
Buck helped map the course, and in less than a year, construction of the trails was completed. A donation from the Usibelli Foundation covered about $300,000 in costs.
Today at 11:00 a.m. is a 10K skate race. It's an interval start, so every 30 seconds another racer starts. They will go four times around the 2.5K course.
Albrigtsen complemented Estle’s crafting of the course so spectators can see almost every part of it from one spot.
“Another really great part of the trails, that they're accessible to people who are interested, don't want to ski, but wants to be part of it. You can be anywhere around the course. John has actually devised a really nice map how to spectate the course," she said.
That map is on the race website. She wants spectators to turn in to participants.
“And we hope that people can come watch it, um, and get interested, and then hopefully they get on skis,” she said.
For Estle’s part, he has contacted every coach who has ever been part of the UAF ski team back to 1981, and invited them to watch today and tomorrow’s races on the new course. And all except for one former coach who lives in Finland, they are coming. Estle is hosting 94-year-old Jim Mahafey, who coached the team from 1962-67. He and the emeriti coaches will be honored at a gathering Saturday evening at the UA Museum of the North.
