by Morgan Simmons

A late-season snowstorm recently enabled a Knoxville native to become the first person to snowshoe a 50 kilometer, single track, ungroomed trail in competition.

Phillip Gary Smith entered the inaugural Chippewa Moraine 50km Trail Race, in New Auburn, Wis., assuming he’d be running in trail shoes.But after a freak storm dumped snow through the region, Smith, 60, a University of Tennessee graduate, completed the 31-mile course in snowshoes.

The race was April 12 on a section of the National Scenic Ice Age Trail through Wisconsin’s glaciated landscape.

Smith, an avid snowshoer and ultra-distance trail runner who now resides in Minneapolis, watched as forecasters called for a huge snowstorm just in time for the start of the race. “I felt like a kid in Knoxville getting up in the middle of the night and checking to see if it snowed enough to call off school,” Smith said.

He completed the race in 10 hours 28 minutes. All other 134 competitors ran in trail shoes, many with spikes, cleats or miniature chains. He finished last - one-half hour before the cut-off.

More at knoxnews.com

ROE input: I thought this was rather interesting, and certainly more so when I read that Snowshoe Phil came in last. I suppose if I were an avid snowshoe-er, then I might be excited to run one last race this year in a pair of snow shoes, but from the article it is obvious that it wasn’t such a terrific storm that it necessitated them being worn. It’s ironically cool however, to see a story about the last place finisher for once.

If you might be questioning the claim about being the “first” to accomplish this, in the top paragraph as I do, I believe the added term, “ungroomed,” helps file this under a more unique category.

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