Skiing Over 110k vert in One Day

Patrick and Gordon Finnegan aren’t your typical casual weekend skiers. Hailing from Alta, WY, the brothers grew up ski racing around the west and have always had a tick for pushing the boundaries together. On the morning of March 19th, the duo set out for a leg burning adventure, to ski 100,000 vertical feet in one day at JHMR. With a strategic plan, perfect weather window and determination to break 100k, the brothers took to the Teton Lift with the hopes of the joining an elite skiing club.

The brothers Finnegan were kind enough to answer some questions regarding their vertically challenged day. Find out more about how they planned and set out to accomplish their goal below.

What are your names and where are you from? 

Patrick (27) and Gordon Finnegan (28), we grew up in Alta, WY, and went to high school in Jackson where we both were individual alpine State Champions.

When did you start coming to Jackson?

1997 was our first visit to Jackson Hole. We became familiar with the resort in 2001 during the Teton County School District passport program. Most notably, we “dropped Corbet’s” on one of our guided instructor days while in 5^th and 6^th grade.

What made you both decide to ski 100k in one day? 

Do you mean 110,000? 😉 “Patrick looked in the mirror and realized that he isn’t the spry young grom he once was…” Joking aside, we wanted to do something awesome to celebrate Patrick’s birthday. He recalls seeing plaques at Sun Valley commemorating this achievement and thought it was worth an attempt someday. Made for a happy “Vert” day! Here is a breakdown of our vertical feet count:

JHTapped count = 112,022 ft, Garmin = 109,672 ft (note with the position of the watch, one run was paused (not counted) by the cuff of Gordon’s glove. Quickly fixed after boarding the chair).

Why did you pick the Teton Lift and Kemmerer run to ski 100k on? 

We worked out the math for a number of different lift and run combinations. To the best of our knowledge, this combination is the most ideal. The Teton Lift offers the fastest and steepest incline, while Kemmerer is the longest, steepest, and straightest decline nearest to the lift. We both also enjoy geeking out on random math problems and how to achieve seemingly impossible feats. A nice recent example is long it would take to run from Jackson to Alta and whether road or trails would be faster.

How did you keep track of your vertical feet and # of runs?

This is something that we were slightly worried about and so we had a number of backup systems in place. We both had the JH Tapped app running, as well as Gordon skied with a Garmin GPS watch, which had a nice run count feature on it. Patrick’s JH Tapped app actually crashed around 96,000 ft (most likely older phone related!) so we were grateful to have all the backups in place.

How were conditions that day?

We put a great deal of thought into seeking the ideal conditions to attempt this goal. We knew that we needed no lift lines, so a weekday was imperative. We also needed fast snow in the morning without it becoming too slushy by the end of the day. Needless to say, we took a day off of work and lucked out with a bluebird. The warmth from the previous day made the grooming very bumpy and icy to kick things off.  Not the soft corduroy we were hoping for, but the snow was still hard and fast. We also kept a “train schedule” of sorts that benchmarked the number of runs we needed to be at by certain times. Not a cloud in the sky. Slightly cold in the morning, but the pit zips were down and helmet vents opened by mid-afternoon. We were pushing a bit more slush and dealing with a bit more run traffic than we wanted to in the closing hours, but we had built up a nice pace cushion from the morning to keep our speeds down and avoid other mountain guests.

Did anyone ski with you?

JHMR president, Mary Kate Buckley joined us for a lift ride up, but when she heard that we had to make it down in 2 minutes or less, she said she would happily let us ski ahead. Bjorn Schou, Gordon’s soon to be brother in law, joined for almost half the runs and did a great job keeping the mood light and distracting us from the monotony of the feat. Run 27 was the hardest, “we’re not even halfway?!”

What did you do after you got off the hill?

Well, the initial plan was to cap off the ski with 100oz of beer a piece, however, we quickly realized that we were only good for a tall boy from South Cable and a shared pitcher of beer from the Mangy Moose. If we ever make the attempt again, we are seeking sponsors for the 100oz of beer. 😉