Industry News
Steamboat Resort, Colorado, is known for producing some pretty good skiers. Over the years, over 100 Olympic athletes have called Steamboat Springs their home, more than any other city in the nation. However, amongst the realm of recreational skiers are some other impressive individuals.
One of them has to be 57-year-old Joe Brougher, who now holds the distinction of being the first skier to officially track 5 million vertical feet skied at the resort in a season.
Brougher did it all in 118 ski days while riding 2,806 lift rides and ended the season with 5,003,967 vertical feet. To keep his body in top condition to keep skiing every day, he iced his knees and implemented an extensive massage gun routine. He gave his knees pep talks every day as he rode the gondola to start his ski day and took time to calm his mind and meditate.
He kept a couple of mental notes and sayings close by for additional motivation. A patch on his coat reads, “I don’t stop when I’m tired; I stop when I’m DONE.” Additionally, he wrote on his gloves, “Have fun” and “Hydrate.”
To maximize his time on the mountain and average 9,000 vertical feet an hour, Brougher anticipated the mountain’s day-to-day flow to predict where the crowds and lift lines would be the least. He normally used the four lifts, Sundown, Stormpeak, Pony, and Thunderhead, and rarely did the same run twice daily.
Skiing strategically for the sole purpose of maximizing vertical may sound like too much work and not enough fun. However, Brougher claims that couldn’t be further from the truth. In an interview with the Steamboat Pilot, he explained.
“When you talk about it, sometimes it sounds like work, but there wasn’t a day out there that I was working. It was fun. I was having a blast, and if you ever rode a lift with me, you saw that I had a smile on my face. The mountain is a puzzle every day because you have different weather, different crowds, and lift stoppages. Your body is different. The visibility can be different from run to run. You have to react to the circumstances and have a plan. For me, it made it extremely fun. It was a different way of skiing.”
The quest for 5 million was in jeopardy partway through the season. After logging his 80th day on the mountain, Brougher traveled to Indiana with his wife, Kelly, to celebrate her father, who had won an award. When he returned to Steamboat, he sat at 2,950,000 vertical feet with 39 days left on his season because he would be returning to Indiana on April 1. He would have to average 53,000 vertical feet daily to reach 5 million. Mathematically, it was possible, but in previous years, Brougher’s longest streak of 50,000+ vertical in a day was only nine straight days. Could he do it every day for over a month?
Brougher was clearly up for the challenge because, in his first 18 days back, he recorded over a million vertical feet, which was the shortest amount of time he’d ever taken to reach that amount. On March 30, after 38 days and one day to spare, he crossed the 5-million-foot mark.
In addition to his accomplishment at Steamboat, Brougher is number one on the Ikon Pass leaderboard for vertical feet. Given all the physical activity of skiing nearly every day, he lost 22 pounds this season, but most importantly, he had fun doing it.
Must be very well off to be able to live in an expensive ski town like steamboat, & NOT have a job!
Who cares, skiing is about enjoying it, not statistics tripe!!!