Car-Free Ski to Sea: A Wave of Whatcom Women

Article courtesy of: Ted Tarricone • IG: @interpre_ted • tedtarricone.com

This year, more women than men took on the car-free approach to Ski to Sea. Follow their journeys from doorstep to finish line, as homegrown adventure drew both longtime racers and new faces alike.

Since 1973, the Ski to Sea race has been a community tradition, tracing the path of the Nooksack watershed from the snows beneath Mount Baker to the Salish Sea across seven disciplines. To many, the idea of strapping a garage-worth of gear to bikes and covering the 90-mile course might sound like a tough sell.

But for those who do find a way to do it without a car, it’s a celebration. Of challenge, of problem-solving, and the joys of moving through the world, at times perhaps more slowly and heavily than we are often accustomed to, with friends alongside.

This year’s race was sold out to the first 500 teams to register. Of those, 9 teams officially participated in the car-free division, and a couple others raced in the style within a different category.

Car-Free Green Mountain PT, last year’s first all-women squad across the line for the whole race, looked to repeat the feat while racing car-free with a combination of returning and new faces.

"After last year’s race, we were quite sad for it to be over. This is a unifying event,” said Mel Aviñon, one of the team’s two canoers.

But as it does, time passes, and soon enough Team Car-Free Green Mountain PT was meticulously strapping, organizing, and securing a smorgasbord of goods to their bikes. They then adorned it all, and themselves, with a staple across every discipline—glitter. An hour later than anticipated and faces ashimmer in a deeply welcomed sun (unlike last year’s race-preceding rain), Green Mountain PT took to 542, making stops at Mt. Baker Highway classics, like the Rome Bakery and Market or the annual feast at Silver Fir Campground put on by a local family for car-free racers, dubbed “Hot Rock Chicken.”

The stoke continued to rise with the temperature, and other teams on their respective journeys interwove, including Soy House Pho the Win and a brand new team for whom a majority had yet to compete in Ski to Sea even once, Girls girls girls.

“I know we are capable, even if it feels intimidating. I see it as a group of friends out for adventure, figuring it out as we go,” said Chloe Beck, who organized the new all-women’s team.

And figuring it out is no small feat; the logistics of this race regardless of division are no joke. To do so without internal combustion (or lithium-ion batteries) exponentiates these challenges immensely. It takes a whole lotta time, gumption, communication, and ingenuity to weave seven race legs that involve two sets of skis, bikes, a canoe, and kayak without a vehicle. When later asked about the process, Clara Copley, a first time competitor and Western grad, wished aloud that Chloe could organize her life for her.

And doing so primarily involves the internal combustion of baked goods, Scandinavian Swimmers, and gifts from neighbors to keep pushing on pedals. For the starting three legs this typically means over 60 miles of riding with around 6000 feet of climbing, with bikes often above 60 pounds (some participants may see no irony in this number of 6s in the final stretch of switchbacks that end at Heather Meadows).

“The event showed me how people will rally joyously around folks trying their hand at the car-free journey. From the chicken feast on the mountain to people at the canoe check-in complimenting our trailer and asking to take reference photos, every interaction was so positive. It’s inspiring to experience a community with that kind of positive momentum,” said Emma Jerome of Girls girls girls.

What goes up, must come down, and though this race is of course built upon teamwork and community, it follows something even deeper from start to finish.

The journey of our water.

On the snows under the visage of Komo Kulshan, racers on freshly waxed cross country skis reckon with a mass start 500 strong. They hand the timing chip to those in more rigid boots of downhill skiers (or boarders!), who pass to the knee-punishing run which descends all those many switches hard-won the day prior. The cyclist then continues along the North Fork of the Nooksack River, where the water from above has merged. For a car-free team, imaginative set-ups and techniques are employed, not least of which is figuring out how to get someone their myriad gear after they’ve completed their leg, up to 40 miles away from where they left it.

Clara said, “From the start, all the women on my team would ask, ‘what do you need, how can I help? I gotchu.’”

Water flows down, and it carries as well.

Mel Aviñon had similar themes to share of her experience with both her team, and of Green Mountain Physical Therapy in Bellingham as well, where she was able to get back to 100% from an injury to engage in an event as intensive as this. “I was never told, ‘I can’t.’ It was much more, ‘how do we get to and stay on track to do the things I love?’ I felt I was in really good hands, and the process was so empowering.”

And that element was passed on, as Mel raced alongside Abby Scoggins, 19, of Bellingham, who was competing in her first car-free iteration of the race. The two were the third fastest women’s pair of the day, regardless of division.

But you don’t have to be shooting for podium to be able to compete in such a leg.

“The first time I ever had a canoe paddle touch water was during the race this year,” Clara Copley said. “One of my teammates knew if they asked me to join, I’d say yes and ask questions later. That’s exactly what happened.”

Luckily, Clara and Emma of Girls girls girls kept their canoe right side up during their journey along the Nooksack.

While the water delivers the racers to Hovander Homestead Park in Ferndale, the cyclocross riders wait amidst a sea of rubber in anticipation of hearing their team’s number announced as they are approaching. A local institution like LaFeen’s helps fuel the warm up ride to the race start, while the road bike leg finagles two bikes and canoe trailer (after racing over 40 miles) to meet the canoe for transport back home.

The canoe paddlers deposit the timing chip into the hands of the cyclocross racers at the water’s bank, and the Nooksack offers its moisture to the riparian vegetation, trees, and farmland over which the knobby cross tires roll. This year, the rain was forgiving and mud remained at bay. Obstacles, trails, and roadway then usher the racers to the final transition area at Zuanich Point Park. Here a scene that reflects Seurat’s pointillist classic is to be found. Racers lounge in their boats, awash in floral spectrum, looking right at home in spite of their terrestrial mooring.

Zuanich Point marks the start of the last leg of the race and the next step in the water’s journey, as the Salish sea brings racers home, while providing domicile for the many creatures both above and below the surface.

As with other transition areas, Cake’s Going the Distance defines the airwaves, but instead of bikes on the ground, sea kayaks and surfskis are lined up. For car-free teams, these are brought over by bike, as with Jordan Williams of Girls girls girls, or paddled over from elsewhere, as Ana Swetish of Green Mountain PT did from Marine Park near her home.

Ana, who posted the sixth fastest kayak leg of the whole race to place her team second among all-women’s teams for the day, tells me, “I just love how many badass women there are here in Whatcom County, just incredible athletes you will pass any random day in the street.”

And in these streets, these paths, farms, trees, and water, many of these racers feel at home.

Clara of Girls girls girls echoed the sentiment, saying, “I’ve felt so loved, so supported. We’ve been able to share our worries too along the way. It’s also opened my eyes to commuting and travel by bike.”

When considering the impacts of traversing by one’s own power within community, Claire Swingle, the cyclocross rider for Girls girls girls, shared a quote from an 1896 manifesto that describes the bike as an elegant instrument for freedom:

The path of water leads to the sea, but the stories of the droplets differ. Nutrients are carried, and some help to cleanse. What goes up, comes down. And together the river flows, it nourishes. For the women in this year’s car-free division, there was grit. There was glitter. Things came apart. And in the form of many hands, paddles, skis, pedals, and more, they came together again. Similarly in how water has no choice but to make its way to the sea, a common sentiment expressed many times by the women of the weekend—

“I can’t imagine doing this any other way.”

Take a look at the gallery of the weekend, which involved covering two car-free teams with a 115-mile bike ride over the two days. What a joy!

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*This project was supported in part by Green Mountain Physical Therapy, and I can attest to their quality of care; I have had the opportunity to keep my own healing on track from a recent troubling injury with the help of Dr. Sarah Paxson (who was part of last year’s team) and sponsor of this year’s race squad.

To view results and learn more about the race, visit skitosea.com.

To learn more about how Ski to Sea can be used toward a more sustainable form of ecotourism, read my thesis on the matter!

Thanks to Rena Kingery for editorial help on this story!