Super Seniors Rack Up Vertical at Whitefish Mountain Resort
Up the mountain he goes, down the mountain he goes. Repeat, endlessly.
Fred Frost, 74, is a marvel of skiing stamina, regularly racking up more than 4 million vertical feet per season at Whitefish Mountain Resort.
Fred Frost, 74, skis 35,000 – 40,000 vertical daily.
Frost is among the many hard-charging senior skiers at the Montana resort who take advantage of a free-ticket policy for anyone older than 70.
“What else are you going to do in the winter?” says Frost, who skis six days a week during the season, taking only Saturdays off. “I moved here to ski, so I’m going to ski.”
Frost is a retired high school math teacher from Pateros, Wash., who came to Whitefish to enjoy the outdoors.
On a single-degree day in January, Frost skis run after run on Whitefish Mountain’s Chair 1, with its 2,084 feet of vertical. In a typical day, he accumulates between 35,000 and 40,000 vertical feet of skiing, stopping only to do what he calls a “D and R.”
“What’s that?” he’s asked.
“A drain and refill,” he says with a little smile. No food, just a visit to the bathroom and drinking fountain.
To understand why Frost pays so much attention to how much vertical he gets, you need to delve into Whitefish Mountain’s annual Vertical Tracker competition. Since the 2004-05 season, the resort has ranked passholders’ vertical — based on its electronic ticket scanners — and posted the results online. That led to a heated competition to rack up the most vertical in all age groups.
Frost, in the “Super Senior” category, has won the overall title several times and regularly places in the top three. Last year’s overall winner, Ken Jones, 52, is in awe of what Frost accomplishes year after year.
“When I moved here, everyone was telling me about Fred. He was the legend,” Jones says. “He’s so inspirational when you think of his age and how he keeps going.”
Jeanne Reichstadt, 63, skis with Frost regularly and is “amazed by his stamina. He never even stops to eat.”
Reichstadt also bicycles with Frost in the summer and mountaineers with her husband in nearby Glacier National Park to stay in shape.
“It is really amazing how fit many older people are here,” says Reichstadt, who moved to Whitefish 17 years ago from Nebraska. “They want to stay healthy so they can keep going.”
Pam Shaw, 60, is a Kiwi who skis hard at Whitefish
At age 60, Pam Shaw is another older skier who hits it hard at Whitefish Mountain. Shaw, a New Zealander who is spending the winter in Whitefish skiing and working as a nurse, takes a visitor on some of her favorite runs — all rated advanced. She shreds with abandon, laughing at the fun of it all.
And then there’s the over-70 threesome of Ken Meckel, Bob Donahue and Gary Simonsic, who also like to ski the steeps. They don’t care about the vertical competition — skiing hard is their thing.
And it helps that their skiing is free.
“So far, we haven’t figured out how we can get the resort to pay us,” Meckel jokes.
Adapting your workout to your age.
Stamina, skiing and senior skiers.
Have you noticed that the older you get, you have to work out harder to maintain an ever-decreasing level of conditioning? Yeah, yeah, yeah… I know all the reasons but the reality is vigorous work-outs just delay the inevitable. As we get older our:
- Bodies aren’t as flexible;
- Bones are more brittle;
- Muscles don’t recover as fast; and
- We lose muscle mass and brain function.
Since I’m losing brain muscle, that must be why I can’t remember why I should stop skiing, so I keep riding lifts. Then I have to remember how to get down!
Marc Liebman recommends elliptical training for senior skiers.
Seriously, what I did to keep in skiing shape at 40 isn’t appropriate for someone who is 71. Like my body, it has evolved over time. Back when I was just four decades old, I ran a 10K five to six times a week at a 7.5 minute per mile pace. Plus, I did chair sits, squats that strained my thighs and calves, crunches to build my core and other stuff. All in the name of conditioning for skiing.
Workout menopause started at age 60 during a visit to an orthopedic surgeon. He gave me a “twofer” of bad news after looking at an MRI. First, he said if you keep running you’ll need new knees around age 65. Second, I needed surgery to repair a torn and worn meniscus. What a bargain!
That was the last day I ran, did squats and chair sits because they strained my joints way too much! My workout evolved into 50 minutes on an elliptical at least five days a week going fast enough with enough resistance to get my heart rate into the 140s. Interval training led to strained groin muscles that took months to heal. My goal in each session is to burn at 475 – 500 calories and cover 4.3 miles. Crunches and a daily 3.5 mile walk minimize the strain on my leg joints.
All this is in the name of building stamina. If my legs are dead tired, it is hard to turn or stop which could lead to a bad fall and/or slamming into a tree, lift tower, or worse, another skier…
I also do much more stretching now than I did before. My focus is on maintaining flexibility. Over time, my body has told me my groin and hamstrings need stretching, and I’ve learned the hard way to listen. Stretching is also important if for nothing else, flexibility minimizes the pain and strain of putting on ski boots!
You have to tune your body. Nobody else can. I’m not big on personal trainers but if that’s what it takes, go for it. Just remember, as you get older, the whole conditioning process takes more calendar and workout time and effort. The pay-off in building stamina and keeping flexible is longer ski days. For me that translates to 27 to 30 thousand vertical.
Ski Idaho – Snowmobile To Hot Springs
Idaho has the most usable hot springs in the entire US: 130 springs out of the state’s 340 are “soakable.”
Yes, it’s warm down there underground. The state apparently sits above a massive hot spot that fuels not only this but the springs and geysers of Yellowstone National Park.
So, locals have their pick from rustic pools that are run like swimming holes of the 1950s to private (sneak in spots) to elaborate places that have been visited for well over a century.
In winter, many rent a snowmobile and thrash their way around … something that could be risky if you don’t know where you’re going or how to get there.
Snowmobiling to Burgdorf Hot Springs near McCall, ID. Photo: Mark Schneider.
A new option is the guided snowmobile trek out of Brundage Mountain ski resort through Brundage Snowmobile Adventures ($295 per person per day).
My friends and I met our guide, climbed aboard 800 cc Skidoos and took off.
That machine could climb a wall. It took a bit to figure it out, but soon enough, we were motoring along, cutting into a forest thick with pine, fir and Tamarack.
It was snowing lightly, giving the landscape an ethereal glow. We traveling through a Christmas card during the snowiest winter in 30 years.
The trail took us up foothills, where we stopped at an overlook, then down, finally, to an old pioneer trail. I got my machine up to 50mph on an open stretch, but kept wondering what would happen if I got bounced off.
Thirty-five miles after leaving Brundage, we turned into Burgdorf Hot Springs.
This place is a legend, owned by a local family and operating since 1865. It’s rustic, but has amenities. You can rent a cabin overnight for $40 per person, and there’s a simple cafe for food.
In winter, Burgdorf Hot Springs looks like a Hallmark scene. Rustic cabins sit picturesquely scattered around the rolling property and in the middle is the spring … a large, rectangular pool with gravel bottom and two smaller, VERY hot pools.
Inside the main building, caretaker Caroline Huntley chatted about the springs’ history… how Fred Burgdorf built a simple hotel in the l800s and people would come by horseback to stay and soak.
In summer, you arrive by car, but in winter, the only way in is by snowmobile.
We removed our travel duds and hit the water.
Main pool at Burgdorf Hot Springs during a light snowfall.
The main pool is a soothing 100 degrees. The two small pools at the end hit 108 degrees or so; good for maybe five minutes while peering through icicles at the snowy landscape.
Lose as a noodle, we climbed back into our snowmobile suits, took off and returned to Brundage.
As one last adventure on the final stretch of road, four skiers and a snowboarder came freefalling down the mountainside, cutting between trees through powder and entered the road before us.
We waved as we sped past. A few minutes later we were back at the resort’s main lodge.
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