Q & A: Everything You Need to Know About Whistler's Great Snow-Earth-Water Race

Q & A: Everything You Need to Know About Whistler's Great Snow-Earth-Water Race

Over the years, the May long weekend in Whistler has earned a reputation as a rather unruly holiday. Those who work in the Village dread the holiday weekend, which for whatever reason seems to magentically draw suburban hooligans, eager to smash windows and puke in the Village Stroll.

The Resort Municipality of Whistler has acknowledged the, let's say, unsavory atmosphere that typically accompanies this weekend, and has vowed to give the holiday an outdoor-inspired makeover.

Enter GO Fest, Whistler’s Great Outdoors Festival. The three day long celebration will feature free musical performances, a mountain bike race, “The Great Slush Cup”, and many more events. We can actually start to look forward to the May long weekend in Whistler.

There’s one event generating a particularly high level of buzz: The Great Snow-Earth-Water Race. The Great Snow-Earth-Water Race was a Whistler rite of passage in the 1980’s, the kind of event that old-timers get all teary eyed talking about, reminiscing on “the good old days”. The event is being revived for the first annual GO Fest, so it's time to assemble your team of skiers, snowboarders, downhill bikers, cross country bikers, runners and canoe paddlers.

Photo courtesy of the Whistler Museum

We spoke with Darren Kinnaird, the general manager at Crankworx Events Inc., the company producing GO Fest. He gave us the inside scoop behind the most anticipated event of the spring.

33Mag: The Great Snow-Earth-Water Race is making a comeback after a 20+ year hiatus. What inspired the revival of this particular event?

Darren Kinnaird: The concept and framework of GO Fest is about celebrating the unique time of year in Whistler when you can do winter and summer activities at the same time. The Great Snow-Earth-Water Race was a natural fit because it celebrates all those really cool things that you can do in Whistler only at that time of year, during springtime.

33Mag: What are the different stages of the race? Are they the same as the Snow-Earth-Water event of the 1980’s?

Darren Kinnaird: It’s going to start off with a touring or cross-country ski stage. In the years past, it used to be a cross-country skate ski race, so we wanted to modernize it a little bit and introduce touring gear, but people can still use cross-country if they’d like.

From there, they’ll tag off to a downhill skier. When the snow eventually runs out, the skier will tag off to a downhill mountain biker, who will race down the mountain to Skier’s Plaza.The downhill biker will tag off to a runner, who will race around the Whistler Golf Course down towards Lorimer Road and then to Rainbow Park.

The runner will tag off to the canoe team, who will go down the River of Golden Dreams across Green Lake. They, in turn, will tag off to an all-mountain cross-country mountain bike athlete, who will go up and down a few times and end up back at the base of Whistler Mountain in the finish area. Needless to say, there will be no shortage of activities!

33Mag: What do you think is the most challenging stage of the race?

Darren Kinnaird: If it were me, the canoeing would be the most difficult one because it’s not only one person by themselves; they’re with a teammate.

In addition to the fact that you might be doing something foreign to you—unless you do a lot of canoeing—you also have to add the element of teamwork in there. You look at some of the old videos and hear the old stories and it seems like the most chaotic part is the canoeing.

33Mag: With a mass start planned for the event, what stage is most likely to stagger out the competition?

Darren Kinnaird: It'll happen right off the bat. The touring component starts off essentially going up-hill. That’ll spread out the pack pretty quickly.


Photo courtesy of the Whistler Museum.

33Mag: Do you think there’s an advantage of using either cross-country gear versus touring gear?

Darren Kinnaird: To be honest, I don’t know exactly. There may be advantages to having touring gear for the downhill sections, but I can see the skate skiing being a better option for the uphill sections or on flats. We’ll see! 

33Mag: From an organizational standpoint, what’s the most challenging part about hosting an event like this for the first time (in recent years, at least)?

Darren Kinnaird: There really isn’t one single part that’s been super difficult. The enthusiasm and the excitement from the community about bringing this race back and bringing the whole festival into play has just been so great to see.

There have been no real negatives this whole project—just awesome positives. Our job is to be the catalyst for a culture change for the weekend. We have the easy, fun job!

33Mag: Teams have a six-hour time limit to compete the event. Can you give us an idea on how long it will take the average team to complete? Any guesses on how fast the first place winners will complete the course?

Darren Kinnaird: From what I have been told, previous winning times were around two and a half hours. We could be looking at something like that, roughly, but we haven’t paced out the course yet.

33Mag: Will spectators be invited to cheer on participants? If so, do you have any insight on the best spots to watch from?

Darren Kinnaird: The river is going to be amazing, especially down near Lorimer Road—that’ll will be popular spot to watch.

The downhill mountain bike teams will be coming through Skier’s Plaza, so that’ll be a big one. The transition zone from Stage 2 (downhill skiing or snowboarding) to Stage 3 (downhill mountain biking) at the top of the bike park will also be really cool for watching people run through with all their gear attached to them. They’re all going to be great!

33Mag: Do you think there will ever be an “Iron Great Snow-Earth-Water Race”, where one person completes every single stage solo?

Darren Kinnaird: If the demand is there, I don’t see why we wouldn’t. But we do want to make it a fun, team weekend.

The challenge with doing it with individuals is the logistics of having one person’s gear all over the place. It adds such a massive incremental cost. Suddenly, we have to think about getting people’s gear into position as opposed to the teams doing it themselves. It might take a few years before that’s an option.

For details on the Great Snow-Earth-Water Race, check out the official website.

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