Ker-splash! Vail season ends with a spray

VAIL - The run was steep, the ramp high and forbidding, and the water barely above freezing. But Alex Guluzian had a plan.

“I’m hoping to walk across,” he said with a laugh.

He was, after all, dressed up as Jesus.

“But I’m probably going to get wet,” conceded Guluzian, on vacation at Vail from Florida on Sunday.

He did.

It was the last day of the season at Vail, and most of Colorado’s other ski hills were closing that day or had already closed for the season. A few thousand spectators gathered at the Golden Peak base area for the eighth annual World Pond Skimming Championships to watch 100 skiers and snowboarders compete for the ultimate prize: two free season passes.

Where else can you find all the fun of skiing, water skiing, swimming and potential hypothermia in a single event?

Actually, pond-skimming has popped up at ski areas across the country, a way to get people on the hill and keep things interesting when powder days are a memory and the snow has turned to slush. At the artificial pools at Vail and Echo Mountain, and the frozen natural lake in the upper bowl at Arapahoe Basin, braving the frigid waters has become a rite of spring.

And it is just as hard as it looks.

“Most do not make it. I think it’s very tough,” said Natalie Fandrey, with Highline Sports and Entertainment, which ran the Vail event.

Skiers are judged on how far across the pool they make it, the creativity of their moves and the crowd’s response. There is no one trick for success, no secret to staying upright when a skier soaring on snow hits the momentum-stealing water with a harsh slap.

Fandrey said some coat their skis or snowboards with lard. Beyond that, the only tip she had was to keep your ski tips up.

Skiing Magazine offers this advice:

“First, wear the most ridiculous outfit you can imagine. Bring liquid refreshment. No matter what, resist all speed checks on the run-in. Don’t lean too far backward or forward; just try to feel for the sweet spot — which, of course, you won’t know until you hit the water. If you fall, try to spray the crowd as you go, and definitely take your skis off before you try to climb out of the water.”

Vail extreme skier Chris Anthony has tackled some of the toughest mountain terrain anywhere, starring in movies by Warren Miller for two decades.

But you could hear the trepidation in his voice Sunday, looking down at the steep run and the water below.

“My mom suggests I don’t eat anything  because I might go swimming,” Anthony said.

His mom was right.

He had won the event in the past and thought he had the right approach, but was not expecting the lip on the ramp to throw him so high into the air. Plenty of others were going in blind.

“I have no idea what I’m doing,” acknowledged tourist Jim Porter, on vacation from Chicago. “I’m not a strong skier.”

“We’re here to clear it. That’s the objective,” he said.

A parade of Vikings, sharks, dogs and even a beer keg on skis and snowboards — and a couple of skiers in bathing suits that left little to the imagination — spent the afternoon racing down the snow and into the air. Very few landed on their skis or boards.

“As long as I don’t break a leg or do whatever, it was fun at the end of the day. It gives you a reason to get up in the hills,” said Doug Woodward, of Aurora, dressed as a giraffe.

The winner, though wasn’t in costume at all. He was Denver skier Chris Conrad, who soared about 20 feet off the jump, kept his center of gravity low when he hit the water and made it across.

“I just anticipated that slap and rode it,” he said.

With free barbecue and sunny skies, everyone laughed away the end of the season. The lifts would soon be still and the lifties would be without jobs. Gone would be the traffic and parties of a resort town in-season, replaced by the quiet streets and closed storefronts of a town enjoying a little peace before the summer tourists arrive.

After Sunday, just four ski resorts were open, and they would close in the coming weeks. Arapahoe Basin, the last holdout, has a tentative closing date of June 6, said spokeswoman Leigh Hierholzer.

A-Basin and Echo Mountain ski areas have their own versions of pond-skimming.

Echo Mountain will hold its Slush Cup Pond Skim on closing day, May 2.

A-Basin has no formal pond-skimming event. But each May, the melting snow forms a small lake in the upper bowl of the resort. Go on one of the last couple of weekends, and you will see the brave and foolhardy trying to skim it.

Sometimes employees serve as judges, but unlike at Vail, there are no prizes and nobody is waiting with a towel.

Skiers who don’t make it across are rewarded with a chilly run to the bottom of the hill.

“That pond is about waist deep. That water is cold,” Hierholzer said.

So why do it?

Said Hierholzer, “The challenge is the fun.”

DETAILS

Front range ski area Echo Mountain closes for the season May 2, and it celebrates the occasion with the Slush Cup Pond Skim. Registration is free, from 9 to 11 a.m. that day, and skiers and riders can compete for a $250 prize by having the fastest time across the pond.

Other ski area closing dates:

• Aspen Mountain: April 25

• Loveland: May 2

• Arapahoe Basin: June 6 (tentative)