Cam Smith Couldn’t Finish His First Skimo Race, But Now He Could Be On The Brink Of An Olympic Berth

Growing up in Rockford, Illinois, afforded limited opportunities for Cam Smith to participate in snow sports.

That all changed in 2014 when he joined his older sister at Western Colorado University and the two siblings competed together in the famed Grand Traverse ski mountaineering, or skimo, race.

“I found that I really liked the event,” Smith said. “I just thought it was such a cool way to move and travel in the mountains. To just have it feel smooth and efficient was just really cool and exciting and kind of liberating in a way.”

Smith didn’t finish that race, which is a 40-mile trek from Crested Butte to Aspen, but he did reach the top of the initial climb and enjoyed a spectacular view of the region from 12,000 feet.

He’s been hooked on skimo — a sport where athletes climb up a mountain and then ski down it — ever since.

More than a decade after getting into the sport, Smith, 29, is a member of the U.S. ski mountaineering national team and is hoping to represent his country next winter when the sport makes its Olympic debut in Italy.

Next year’s Olympic events in Bormio, Italy, will include the men’s and women’s sprints and the mixed relay. Smith — who ran cross-country and track in high school — came from the world of longer, backcountry-style events and had to get accustomed to the shorter skimo races.

“It took me a little while to wrap my head around it,” he said. “I find the racing really fun, and it’s really exciting to watch. I’ve really come around on the excitement of the event.

The Americans know that the only path to qualifying for an Olympic berth this time around is in the relay. Smith and race partner Jessie Young are currently ranked 13th in the world and sit one point behind Canada in the team standings. With one qualifying event in December remaining, qualifying for Milano Cortina will be as simple as finishing ahead of Canada in that race.  

“We’re right there. We’re one point out,” Smith said. “It’s also exactly what I want because we have the opportunity right in front of us. We just need to have one good race on the only day. If we perform, we’ll qualify, and if we don’t, we won’t. It’s motivating because we have that control.”

Since competing in his first international event in 2017, Smith has noticed a dramatic improvement in his racing.

“We’re skiing much faster times now,” Smith said. “When I started (internationally), I felt like I was just some random kid in the sport in the back of the pack, and in a lot of ways, I was. I didn’t really realize I was getting much faster because it was happening so gradually.”

In the early days, Smith would win U.S. championships and then travel to Europe and finish well behind race winners there. He moved up slowly and finally broke through by reaching the podium in a vertical race — an event that is a single ascent up a mountain on skis — at a 2022 world cup event in Andorra.

That result remains a career highlight for him.

“It felt so far away for so long,” Smith said. “It just never really felt possible to reach all the way towards the front of the race.”

Smith had achieved a different highlight a year prior to that podium finish. In 2021, Smith and fellow U.S. team member Tom Goth set the Grand Traverse course record, finishing the race in 6 hours, 6 minutes and 24 seconds and conquering the race he couldn’t finish years earlier. 

As Smith pointed out, a great deal has changed in skimo since he entered the sport. When he began competing, there was no centralized national team and U.S. athletes didn’t compete consistently on the world cup circuit. Now, younger competitors have a solid infrastructure to support them, he said.

“I think I was just kind of carrying the torch between a couple eras,” he said. “It’s cool to see where things are right now.”

Smith credited those Americans who helped pave the way for him. He noted that Nina Silitch won a pair of world cup events before retiring in 2013.

“We’ve had Americans having success on the highest level,” he said. “It was just a little bit of a different sport. The Olympic disciplines are different from what pretty much any of us got into the sport to do.”

No matter what happens in Olympic qualifying, Smith — who is an instructor in the Adaptive Sports Center of Crested Butte — anticipates a long skimo career. He has already bounced back from a few serious injuries over the years.

“I’m definitely looking forward to some healthy years going forward,” Smith said. “I’m hoping for 10 or 12 years, at least. There are a few people racing in their early 40s. I’m having a great time now. I don’t see why I’d stop anytime soon.”

Bob Reinert spent 17 years writing sports for The Boston Globe. He also served as a sports information director at Saint Anselm College and Phillips Exeter Academy. He is a contributor to usaskimo.org on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc.