March 18, 2009 E-MAIL PRINT

Ski museum race is aces

by Marty Basch/

Skiers take to the mass start at the inaugural Bretton Woods Marathon at Mount Washington Resort, a fund-raiser for the New England Ski Museum. (photo: Bretton Woods)

Skiers take to the mass start at the inaugural Bretton Woods Marathon at Mount Washington Resort, a fund-raiser for the New England Ski Museum. (photo: Bretton Woods)

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Three-time Olympian Dorcas Wonsavage was among the more than 160 racers who skied the course at the base of Mount Washington under blue skies. She was in good company. There was Marty Hall, the former U.S. Nordic ski team coach who helped guide Bill Koch to his 1976 Olympic silver medal. There were parents of an Olympian, college racers and weekend warriors.

"The course was phenomenal and it was such a joy," Wonsavage said. "The tracks were perfect and the snow held up well."

She was talking about the inaugural Bretton Woods Marathon at Mount Washington Resort March 14, a fund-raiser for the New England Ski Museum in Franconia, N.H. Not only did the race attract a healthy field, it also signaled the museum, which has long been focused on alpine skiing, is serious about showing cross-country skiing some love.

Alpine skiing's roots are firmly grounded in Nordic skiing. From Berlin's Nansen Ski Club to the Dartmouth Outing Club, freeheel skiing led the way. Ski jumps from Brattleboro, Vt., to Berlin, N.H., attracted the masses. Bretton Woods hosted the 1982 U.S. National Championship while Black Mountain in Rumford, Maine, has hosted the nationals and NCAAs. The World Nordic Disabled Championships and three NCAA championships have come to Jackson Ski Touring Foundation. The Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, Vt., has been operating since 1967 and bills itself as the first commercial cross-country center to be established in the United States.

The Bretton Woods race, which included 50-kilometer and 25-kilometer options at the base of Mount Washington, was the brainchild of Bo Adams from Rochester, N.H., the New England Ski Museum president. His grandfather Carl Shumway, an early Dartmouth Outing Club president, is credited with many White Mountain first ascents on skis, such as a 1913 Tuckerman Ravine trip and a 1912 ski up Mount Moosilauke from Hanover, N.H.

"The museum has touched on Nordic in the past, but Nordic — both cross-country and ski jumping — is the father of alpine skiing," Adams said. "They had to skin up to ski down."

It is Adams' hope that the marathon becomes "the most prominent ski marathon of its kind this side of the Mississippi."

Adams would like to see the field double for next year's event and double the year after.

Executive director Jeff Leich said the museum hopes to have a Nordic skiing exhibit later this year. It would tackle its Norwegian origins to its explosion in popularity in the 1970s and 1980s. There would be some telemark skiing, too.

"This was a fun event," Marty Hall said at the finish. "The organizers are open to suggestions, and I hope that means the event will grow for weekend warriors like me."

Bates College skier Timothy Whiton of Portland, Maine, won the race with a time of 2 hours, 29 minutes, 47 seconds. On the women's side, Dartmouth College freshman Ruth McGovern from Stowe, Vt., was the top finisher in 2:58:12. Wonsavage was second.

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