Rob Kiesel was among the most influential people in the history of Nordic skiing, including Sun Valley. His pioneering innovations in Nordic coaching, team building, trail making, trail grooming and glide-waxing changed both competitive and recreational Nordic skiing throughout the world. An accomplished alpine ski racer before switching to Nordic, he moved to Ketchum in 1971 and with a partner opened Snug Mountaineering for backpackers, climbers and cross-country skiers in the same building where The Elephant’s Perch now stands. The following year he took over the coaching of a small group of high school Nordic skier who had been training on Sun Valley’s trails and started the Sun Valley Ski Education Foundation’s first Nordic program. Bob Rosso (who founded and still owns The Elephant’s Perch and has been one of the primary promoters and organizers of the BMT from the beginning) was his assistant. Over the next few years, Kiesel expanded the program and attracted skiers to Sun Valley. Kiesel died in October 2011 and a remembrance in Faster Skier reads, “According to Rosso, Kiesel liked to tinker and experiment. He spent time finding new ways to set cross-country track, perhaps most notably along the 32-kilometer Harriman Trail. There in the Wood River Valley, Kiesel helped develop one of the country’s first distance races for cross-country skiers — the Boulder Mountain Tour — in 1973. ‘There were these epic stories of Rob grooming a point-to-point trail with archaic 1970s snowmobile stuff,’ said SVSEF Nordic Program Director Rick Kapala. One of the first to dream up a year-round trail from Galena Lodge to the Sawtooth recreation area near Sun Valley, Kiesel had to route the trail. Kapala recalled stories of him driving into the river on his snowmobile.” High level athletics was in Kiesel’s blood, as his father, Bob, won an Olympic gold medal in 1932 as a member of the world record setting 4×100 meter relay at the Los Angeles games.
The first BMT from Galena Lodge to the SNRA was 30 km long and crossed highway 75 five or six times and was mostly either on top of the highway’s snowbank or right next to it. There were 48 competitors in that race and the first winners were Brent Hansen in 2:53:15 and Julie Gorton in 3:09:30. Hansen remembers the race like this: “Quite a bit of snow had blown in the night before the race. I was surprised to see how many people were at the start since it wasn’t a big sport in the valley yet. There was a mishmash of wooden skis, synthetic skis, weird touring set ups and probably some Army surplus. It seemed like a large cross section of skiers was there–from young to old. I had been experimenting with klister all season in the back country instead of using skins. So that is what I decided to use for the race, thinking it might be warmer on the bottom half. When the race started I immediately iced up with clumps of snow and so was at the back of the pack. I had to run with this on and off for the 1st half of the race. In the second part the snow was warming up and I was surprised to see I started passing a lot of people. From Phantom Hill to the finish the trail was blown in and difficult to find. I finally caught up with the lone skier ahead of me, Hemann Primus, who was much older than me, but going strong. I finally was able to pass him. Then I broke trail the rest of the way and realized how much work Hermann had done for us all! At the finish I was shocked to see that I had won. Many town folks had come out to watch and cheer us all on at the finish and along the route. The joy and excitement of the event really helped kick off Nordic skiing in the Wood River Valley where residents were longing for something like this and wanted to ski other places besides Baldy and Dollar…”
In 1974 the winners were Bob Rosso in 1:54:30 and Polly Sidwell in 2:18:15. The fastest times ever for the 30 km race, which ended in 1998, were Havard Solbakken in 1:05:34:3 and Heidi Selnes in 1:12:13:2. In 1999 some changes in the starting area made the BMT a 32 km race. The first winners of the 32 km race were Carl Swenson in 1:22:46:4 and Laura McCabe in 1:31:31:0. That distance lasted until 2014 when more course alterations moved it up to 34 km. The fastest times ever in the 32 km BMT were posted by Brooke Baughman in 1:12:36:1 and Eric Meyer 1:06:27:6, both in the 2003 race. The first winners in the 34 km BMT in 2014 were Chelsea Holmes in 1:23:55:9 and Sylvan Ellefson in 1:02:16:4, and the fastest overall times so far were posted in 2018 by Matt Gelso in 1:10:28:4 and Caitlin Gregg in 1:17:41:2.
But there’s much more to the BMT than individual winners in those categories. There is also a 15 km Half BMT that starts at Baker Creek and ends at the SNRA, and there are 14 age categories from 13 years and under (12 and under for the Half BMT) to 80 to 84 years. In 2019 the winners in the 13 and under category were Anika Vandenburgh in 2:01:52:95 and Holden Archie in 1:52:22:27. Anne Trygstad of Bozeman, Montana won the women’s 75 to 79 category in 2:41:57:13 and the lone competitor in the 80-84 age catagory was Steve Swanson who finished in 2:45:15:29.
Joanne Levy, who first came to Sun Valley from Hawaii in 1964 and who has been a fixture in the valley ever since, including a stint as Mayor of Sun Valley, competed in every BMT through 2014, sometimes winning her age category. That’s 41 consecutive Boulder Mountain Tours. In 2005 BMT organizers gave Levy a special jacket in acknowledgement of her 30 consecutive races (a couple of BMTs were cancelled due to snow conditions).
Dave Bingham, one of the finest multi outdoor sport athletes in WRV history, won the BMT twice and placed 2nd two other times in the early to mid-80s before, as he says, “…skate skiing became the go-to technique.” Bingham also placed 3rd in the 1980 Pikes Peak Marathon and in 1988 and 1990 won the NBC “Survival of the Fittest.” He is also one of the best known, accomplished climbers in Idaho and the author of the best climbing guide books to southern Idaho. Bingham describes his Nordic coaching career like this: “I coached for SVSEF in three stints, separated by other work, first under Kevin Swigert (approx 1980 – 1984), then with Sue Long and the beginning of Rick Kapala’s tenure, where I was head of the Prep (middle school) Team. That was roughly 1987 -1995. I quit because we’d just had our first child and I was busy chinking the newly-built River Run facilities. I came back as head Devo (elementary school) coach in about 2001, and retired in 2017 during which time the program grew from approximately 60 kids (combined north and south valley programs) to over 100 participants. 28 years!”
Kevin Swigert was director of the BMT for 13 years before retiring at the end of the 2014 season. Swigert, a Twin Falls native who has spent most of his life in the WRV, was a member of the U.S. Nordic Ski Team and three times National Champion. As Director, he was the primary force behind creating the Sun Valley Nordic Festival. From 48 racers in 1973, the BMT has grown to where only 1000 competitors, some of them among the best skiers in the world, are allowed each year. A BMT program from 2014 describes the early years as “…similar to the Boulder Mountain Tour races these days, with the more competitive racers bunched up in front while the recreational skiers enjoyed the scenery and the camaraderie that comes with a slower pace. What was different then was that the racers couldn’t pass easily because of the sketchy grooming. And as for the slower skiers, they really took time to enjoy the day. ‘There were no aid stations back then. We used to bring a backpack with lunch, and sometimes a bottle of wine,’ reminisced Andy Munter, the owner of Backwoods Mountain Sports and a veteran of many Boulder Mountain Tour races. ‘The trail was only set for one day a year, so people really took time to enjoy it.’” Today the WRV calls itself “Nordic Town, USA in winter” with over 200 km of groomed trails open to the public from Galena Lodge as far south as Bellevue. Last season there were 65,876 skier days reported on those trails. The economic impact of the BMT and recreational Nordic skiing on the community is difficult to precisely measure, but, according to Harry Griffith, Executive Director of Sun Valley Economic Development, “In 2012, the total economic impact of the nine days of Nordic Fest in Feb was $3.1 million for Blaine Co. The majority of this impact was from visitors who came from across the US for the Boulder Tour and stayed an average of 4 days to celebrate Nordic skiing.”
That’s a significant legacy to the local community from one man who liked to tinker and experiment and find new ways in the world.