Virtual Oosik Gets Real

The pandemic has brought the word “virtual” to many of our favorite activities.  That usually means sitting at a computer.  But for the Denali Nordic Ski club, hosting a virtual “Oosik Ski Race” meant encouraging people to leave their desks and get outside. 

The Oosik Classic Ski Race is usually held the third week of March.  Almost a thousand nordic skiers take to the Talkeetna trails for a day of cross country skiing.  Last year the race was cancelled due to Covid-19.  But this year the club was determined to host a race.  Laura Wright, Coordinator for the Denali Nordic Ski club, explains what the organization was up against.

“The issue that the board was having, was that we were potentially going to be responsible for bring over a thousand people to town for one day or two day weekend.  The only way around that was to not have the event or to not have the event over one day.”

The Board decided to host the race, but with a twist.  Skiers could ski anywhere and anytime during the period of mid-February through the end of March.

“In general, people quickly figured out that, you don’t have to ski the 25 or 50K in one go.  It didn’t matter to us.  You could do it over a period of days, you could ski a kilometer at a time, or however you wanted to do it.  It honestly did not matter.”

Over 250 people signed up for the race.  Skiers registered from eight different states and the farthest racers hailed from Maine.  To make the race fun, prizes were awarded in designated categories. 

“A lot of the families did send in pictures and, we had some prizes causes, of course, we weren’t going to have prizes for who came in first, second and third speed-wise, like we usually did do, so I made up different categories and one of them was “Best Costume”.  And that went to a family in Anchorage who skied on March 14th, which is called “Pi Day”, as in the mathematical Pi 3.14.  They also put numbers on their bibs of 3.14, but their dog, which they named “Decimal” for the day, was the decimal point.”

There was a prize awarded for the oldest skier in the 50K race and a prize given for the youngest skier in the 25K race.  And all four entrants that sported leather boots, wooden skis and wool clothing won prizes for being “Woolen Woodies”.

Laura says she hopes the race will be back to normal next year, but that this year’s race was deemed both fun and successful.  The club raised enough money to pay for the grooming of over 50 miles of trails in Talkeetna this winter, making the virtual ski race seem quite real.