Want to spend summer at a campground?

YAKIMA, Wash. — Campground hosts at Washington State Parks are underpaid. (They’re volunteers, and when you’re paid nothing, that’s less than being paid something.)

They can find themselves on call, simply by answering a knock on their camper door, at the oddest of hours. (“Excuse me, but the people in the tent next to our site are snoring really loud. Can you do something about that?” The correct answer: Uh, no. Why didn’t you bring earplugs?)

They have to provide their own living quarters. (Their own RV, usually.)  Sounds like the worst of all possible gigs, right?

Yeah, right. That must be why so many campground hosts keep coming back for more of the same abuse.

“We have hosts who come back year after year, and come back a lot of times to the same parks,” said Cindy Jorgensen, who coordinates Washington State Parks’ volunteer program. “We have snowbirds who go south for the winter and then come back to their parks for the rest of the year.”

But because the vast majority of campground hosts are retirees who eventually get around to retiring from hosting as well, every year around this time the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission puts out the word that it’s seeking “enthusiastic and interested volunteers” to serve as campground hosts at its parks around the state.

For the record, I’ve met a lot of campground hosts, and while there might be the occasional grousing — usually about overly demanding or inconsiderate campers — on the whole these folks seem to be genuinely happy about what they’re doing. They love being in the great outdoors or they wouldn’t do it, and let’s face it, a state park is generally set in a pretty nice place to be outdoors. That’s why somebody made it a park in the first place, right?

So, you’re thinking, what do these people have to do?

OK, let’s get right to the question you really want answered. NO, THEY DON’T CLEAN TOILETS.

(Audible sighs all around.)

Hosts do different things at different parks — but, again, no toilet-cleaning. Some are meeters and greeters; some get into knowing the topography, history or other interesting facts about the park and its surroundings and enjoy doing “interpretive” talks with campground guests; some might do general maintenance, help staff with minor carpentry or, in some cases, help man a park store.

Hosts do receive free camping and hookups for their RV/camping equipment (which each host has to provide). A typical host assignment is 30 days, but it can be extended up to 90 days at the park manager’s discretion.

For a list of volunteer and host openings, visit http://www.parks.wa.gov/volunteers/hosting, or stop by the State Parks booth at the Puyallup Fair, May 3-6. If you want to give campground hosting a shot, contact Jorgensen at 360-902-8612 or Cindy.Jorgensen@parks.wa.gov or Laney McIntyre at 360-902-8617 or Laney.McIntyre@parks.wa.gov.

– Scott Sandsberry

Nepal trek on Cascadian agenda

YAKIMA, Wash. — Yes, this is late notice, but if you want to experience vicariously what it might be like to trek through some of the highest real estate on the planet — that’s highest in terms of elevation, not price tags — then you might want to head out to Living Care’s Meyer Auditorium tonight.

The Cascadians’ monthly general meeting at the auditorium (215 N. 40th Avenue) will feature a photographic presentation by David Nott entitled “Trekking the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal with my Son.” Nott’s program will begin at 7 p.m., following a 6:30 p.m. swap meet of hiking, camping, biking or other outdoor gear.

The event is free and open to the public.

– Scott Sandsberry

Putting fires dead out, Part II

YAKIMA, Wash. — We’re in the middle of Washington state’s “Wildfire Awareness Week” — which actually lasts 16 days, through May 6. That’s way too easy a set-up not to crack wise about it: We’re a little slow on the uptake in Washington, we need the extra time to get it right.

Well, apparently we do.  Even on something as seemingly simple as putting out our campfires — COMPLETELY — before we head into our tents for the night or back home at the end of our camping trip.

 Over the past four years, campers neglecting to do just that have caused nearly 700 wildfires on Department of Natural Resources-protected lands in Washington state. Think about that: Nearly 200 wildfires a year, in this state alone, caused by negligent campers. Another 100 campfires were left burning might well have turned into wildfires but they were reported and put out before they caused any damage.

And all because people were too lazy or too forgetful to do something little kids learn (thanks to Smokey Bear) before they’re out of the second grade: If what’s left of the campfire that you think you’ve extinguished is too hot to touch, it’s too hot to leave. It’s not out.

there have been nearly 700 wildfires that resulted from negligent campers leaving their fire pits smoldering and unattended. Another 100 campers left campfires burning without first making sure they were fully extinguished. Fortunately, those were reported and put out before they escaped.

The DNR will be at the Ahtanum Campground this Sunday morning and early afternoon to help educate early-season campers about campfire safety. Apparently, a lot of still need to listen up.

– Scott Sandsberry

Could you use a fire-safety reminder?

YAKIMA, Wash. — It happens every year. A group of people gather around a campfire — whether at a family get-together, a company picnic or a simple camping outing — and enjoy themselves. Then they either go to bed or, worse, drive back to civilization without quite making sure the fire is dead out.

And, of course, it’s not.

A bit of wind kicks up an ember or three. A half-burned stick on the edge of the fire pit sparks up again. A little fire grows into a bigger one, and becomes the latest in the seemingly endless line of wildfires caused by poorly tended or improperly extinguished campfires.

Not surprisingly, it’s Wildfire Awareness Week. Or was, or will soon be, depending on where you live and on what state or federal land management agency’s land you recreate. (I did an online search. Wildfire Awareness Week was last week in one state, it’s next week in another and, with Washington State public lands, we’re in the middle of what is actually a 16-day, April 21-May 6 “wildfire awareness week.”)

Maybe we here in Washington need the extra time to get it straight, because clearly some of us haven’t quite gotten the message. (A small fire that broke out in the Nasty Creek area was believed to have started from an unattended campfire. Same ol’, same ol’.)

So if you happen to be recreating out in the Ahtanum State Forest this weekend, you can check out the Department of Natural Resources’ wildfire-awareness and campfire-clean-out event from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday at the Ahtanum Campground.

Smokey Bear will be present, so bring the kids. We’re marginally certain they won’t be able to tell the difference between a bear and a guy in a bear suit and, besides, the original Smokey wasn’t much of a public speaker anyway. Besides, if the kids can learn how important it is to put campfires dead out, maybe they can help their forgetful elders remember to do the same.

Volunteer crews will also be in the Ahtanum cleaning out designated fire pits in the area in preparation for the upcoming busy camping season.

– Scott Sandsberry

Shotgun girl: Selah 15-year-old on target in sporting clay shooting

YAKIMA, Wash. — Megan Rice hears it all the time.

Oh, I wish I had eyes that young.

Those words from older competitors in the sport at which this Selah 15-year-old excels are invariably intended as a compliment, but they miss the mark.

Which is something Rice rarely does.

Because it isn’t simply her visual acuity that makes her a budding star in the realm of competitive sporting clay shooting. It’s poise under pressure. Concentration. Patience, even — for in her world the space between success and failure can be less than the blink of an eye. Beat that blink and you may be too early. Don’t beat it and you may be too late.

As a mere high school freshman, Rice is decidedly young in a competitive community that is largely “age before beauty.”

It takes time to learn to hit a moving target (a “bird”) with a shotgun load, much less two targets — released an instant apart or at the same time, when one might be bouncing along the ground and the other soaring toward the distant trees.

And her youth and fast-twitch muscle memory aren’t always a benefit.

“When there’s short or quick targets that aren’t out there very long I can usually shoot those better than most of the people I’m with,” she said. “Sometimes it’s hard for me to slow down on farther-out targets, the ones that are slower or that you should wait longer to shoot.

“I’ve been working on that. I’m so fast that I can’t slow myself down — I don’t give (the moving target) enough time to get to where it should go. I’m in front of it.”

Or, increasingly, in front of the crowd.

She was a division winner in her most recent two National Sporting Clay Association (NSCA) events, the first in Seattle and the next in Oregon; at the latter she won “C” class — having moved up from the lower “E” class just this year — as well as finishing atop the ladies and subjuniors classes. She won cash prizes and this season has picked up a corporate sponsor.

“She won both ladies events in Oregon this past weekend, and that’s (against) people who have shot for a long time,” said Carl “Skip” Zapffe of Tygh Valley, Ore., a former national champion and a NSCA All-American for the past 15 years.

“She beat my wife (Beverly) by about five birds, and my wife has been an All-American and has been a state champion five out of the last 10 years. (Megan) has tremendous potential, and she’s really good right now for as little as she’s shot.”

As the oldest of four children and a 4.0 student who plans to become an orthodontist, Megan is blessed with a natural maturity and has long been comfortable and capable with a shotgun. Her father, Randy, took her to her first sporting clays tournament when she was 10 — the same year she got her hunting license — and, he says, “She fell in love with it.”

He taught her to shoot, and now the pupil has surpassed the teacher.

“She passed me up last year, competitively, and I’m trying to play catch-up right now,” Randy Rice says. Does he mind? “Heck no, I love it. I love competition and I know where she gets it from. I just think it’s great.”

While her shooting requires dedication, it’s far from being Megan’s only calling. She plays basketball, used to be a sprinter in track and plays fastpitch in Selah High’s very successful program. In fact, she says her shooting — and the patience, visual focus and quick reaction it requires — helps her at the plate when the softball is flying toward her at 60 mph.

In her shooting, of course, the targets are generally moving in the other direction — or in pretty much any direction.

“You might shoot a target at eight or 10 yards, or at 80 — from the same stand,” Zapffe said. “You’re looking at 15 stations and 100 targets. You’re shooting four to six targets at a station, and every one can be different. You’re not grooved; you need to be able to adapt.”

Clearly, Megan has. When she first began shooting clay targets, she was hitting perhaps 25 or 30 out of 100. Which, Zapffe said, “is good for someone just starting out. Now she’s getting up into the 80s.”

“When you get used to the different kinds of birds (thrown at each target station) and when you can shoot each one, it’s kind of a muscle-memory thing,” she said. “Basically, you have to find a spot where you want to look at the bird and go to that spot. It’s almost like taking a basketball shot or swinging a bat in softball — it’s a muscle memory thing.”

Clearly, Megan has that part down pat. She was named to the NSCA’s 2012 Washington all-state team in the “E” class, has since moved up to “C” and is even winning at that level. So would it be fair to say she’s a prodigy? Or is she just a young shooter with potential?

Zapffe, whose daughter is married to Megan’s uncle, didn’t hesitate. “She’s right there now,” he said. “She beats double-A shooters, and these are guys who shoot two or three times a week and have for 15 years.”

Megan initially became interested in shooting clay targets because she thought it would make her a better hunter when she was out hunting quail with her dad. Now, though, those targets have a real appeal of their own.

“I like both (hunting and target shoot),” she said. “I think the competitive aspect of the shooting is actually a little more fun for me because there’s the chance I can win something, and moving up classes in pretty satisfactory. So, I think in the long run, I probably prefer the shooting.”

And, of course, the not missing.

Shooting sporting clays runs the gamut

YAKIMA, Wash. — There’s trap. There’s skeet. How are sporting clays different than those?

Well, using golf as an analogy:

• Trap shooting is an afternoon at the driving range. You’re hitting shots — or, in trap, taking them — at different distances; the tee (or the clay-pigeon launcher) is always in the same place; and the ball (or the target) is typically moving away from you.

• Skeet shooting is an afternoon at the driving range with a blustery crosswind. Most of the targets are crossing in front of you at different angles.

• Shooting sporting clays is playing the entire golf course — with a different shot possibility every time you raise the club (or the shotgun), requiring forethought and even strategical thinking with each shot.

“Sporting clays are not like trap or skeet,” says Carl “Skip” Zapffe, a perennial National Sporting Clays Association all-American from Tygh Valley, Ore. “With trap or skeet you know exactly what the target’s going to do. With skeet, the targets are always the same, no matter where you go in the United States. With trap, it’s always going to go one of five ways. You’re always going to shoot from the same distance.

“With sporting clays, every course is completely different. You might have a 15-yard bouncing rabbit on the ground and a 50-yard crosser. Then you go to the next station and you could have a double going up through the trees.

“Almost every station is two targets, and it may come as a ‘report pair,’ where (the target-launching devices) throw one and then throw the second at the report of the gun, or it may be a true (simultaneous) pair.

The strategy in sporting clays — which is one of its key differences from the reactive nature of trap and skeet — is that the shooter gets a prior glimpse as to where the targets will travel, usually in simultaneous or one-after-the-other pairs.

The shooter must then figure out a plan of action.

If you follow this one and shoot it first, will the shotgun be in position to get that one before it drops?

Should you take the first shot quickly to give you more time to get the second? Or take your time on the first to make sure it counts?

If the throw is a battue — a thin target thrown on edge so it looks like a razor blade — do you shoot while it’s still razor-thin or wait until it turns toward the ground … by which time it might be out of range? And what if the first one’s a “rabbit” bouncing along the ground? What then?

And, of course, the course technician setting up the flight of the targets can be, well, a bit diabolical.

“The target-setter does his best to foul you up,” Zapffe said. “Not so much with speed and distance, but the good ones will make you move your gun a whole bunch or upset your timing. The good ones will make it look easy when it really isn’t.

“So you walk away thinking, how did I miss that?”

Sharp family wraps up historic, successful season

YAKIMA, Wash. — Last Sunday on a steep, snowy slope at Schweitzer Mountain near Sandpoint, Idaho, David Sharp of Moxee capped a season of dominance in the pro masters classes unlike any ever seen the country’s most prestigious snowmobile hillclimb circuit.

Sharp’s sweep of the season points championships in all three pro master classes — stock, modified and improved — is believed to be the first in the history of the Rocky Mountain Snowmobile Hillclimb Association, according to tour officials.

But Sharp isn’t even the best snowmobiler in his family. That honor belongs to his 19-year-old son, David Jr.

Nor was David Sr. even the most successful snowmobiler in his family for that one weekend. That would be his brother, Brad.

“Hey, I don’t mind,” cracked David Sharp, 50, about taking second fiddle to his son and his brother on the very weekend he did the previously undone.

“I’ve been chasing (son) David around all year in the mountains, and that’s made me a better rider. He’s so good I just follow him around and try to do what he does, and that makes me better.”

Because David Sharp had substantial season points leads in all three pro master classes heading into the final weekend, he raced conservatively, earning two thirds and a fifth. His brother, Brad, won the pro master stock and improved races to finish third in season points in each, and also had a second in pro master modified to finish fourth overall.

The pro master classes are for racers at least 40 years old.

David Sharp Jr. capped his sensational season by earning 10 paychecks at Schweitzer Mountain — five for being a top-five placer in his five pro open classes (he was actually top-three in each, including a win in the largest class, pro 800 stock) and another five for finishing in the top five in season points in each class.

Even as the youngest high-ranking pro on the RMSHA circuit, David Jr. has had plenty of years to learn his craft.

“It was just the experience of growing up, following (David Sr.) around, actually,” he said. “He’d get two 800(cc) sleds from the factory, and I’d be on a big old 800 at the age of 7, to get miles on it and get it broke in for racing. It seemed normal to me.”

His father said David Jr., who was named RMSHA’s racer of the year even before he turned pro, “does amazing things on sleds. … He’s got excellent balance, he’s young and he has no fear — but he’s real consistent.”

David Jr. says he plans to continue hillclimb racing, but also has his sights set on another snowmobile discipline — freestyling, the area in which another Yakima athlete, Joe Parsons, is a three-time gold medal winner in the Winter X Games.

“I’ve been looking at (freestyle) pretty good,” David Jr. said. “I can back-flip a dirt bike, bicycles, everything but a snowmobile. I’d like to shoot that way in the future.”

What does his father say about that?

“He’s for it with me, but I can tell it scares him and my mom a little bit. I’m just having fun with it.”

Runners tried to beat the heat, not the clock at Boston Marathon

YAKIMA, Wash.  — Gretchen Bodeen was feeling just a bit nervous prior to the beginning of Monday’s Boston Marathon. It wasn’t the 26.2 miles she was about to undertake; she’s a veteran of two dozen marathons, including two previous Bostons.

It was the race officials urging participants to put their name, age and weight on the back of their bib numbers, in the event that they keeled over from heatstroke during the race.

The temperature was at nearly 80 before the start and rose into the mid- to high-80s during the race.

“I was kind of intimidated by the heat,” said Bodeen, 31, of Yakima, one of roughly a dozen Yakima-area entrants in Monday’s race. “It was hot from the beginning — even sitting at ‘Marathon Village’ (before the start) was quite warm. I knew how hot I was just sitting there in the shade.”

Although Bodeen had gone to Boston hoping to run under three hours and 30 minutes — she had run a 3:25 there in 2010 and ran a personal-best 3:24:30 in the 2011 Yakima River Canyon Marathon — she changed her thinking on race day.

“With all the heat it was ‘Don’t run for a PR. Run smart,’” she said. “I didn’t look at my watch at all — I didn’t want to know my time.”

Stanley Q. Bostrom of Yakima, who has run every Yakima River Canyon Marathon, found himself unintentionally obeying the flashing traffic update boards along the route telling runners, “HEAT ADVISORY. SLOW DOWN. WALK.”

“I think everybody was about 20 or 30 minutes behind what they wanted to do,” Bostrom said. “Boston’s a big race and you want to do good there. I was hoping for a 3:30 and I barely squeaked by four (hours).”

Race officials had set up extra aid stations (each with Gatorade and water) throughout the course in anticipation of the heat. Local fire department also had uncapped hydrants along the way to douse the runners and numerous residentshad hoses out to shower any passing runners who wanted to get wet. Neither Bodeen nor Bostrom ever missed an opportunity, also making sure to drink plenty of liquids at every aid station.

“I kept dousing myself with water as much as I could,” Bodeen said. “It felt so good and refreshing, and the second you got going again it was ‘Oh my gosh, I’m hot again and can’t wait for the next water.’”

“I was soaked. My shoes were squeaking,” Bostrom said. “You felt like you were thirsty but you felt like you were bloated. It was a struggle toward the end just to keep moving. About Heartbreak Hill (about 20 miles into the race), there were lots of people walking.”

Bodeen was surprised when she saw her time — 3:32:44, only eight minutes off her best and on a day when most runners’ times were well off their anticipated pace. She was the 3,419th finisher overall out of more than 22,400 runners.

Toppenish native Adrian Ramirez, who had placed fourth in the 2011 Yakima River Canyon Marathon in 2:47, finished Monday’s Boston race in 3:01:45. Kevin Blount, of Ellensburg, who had blazed to a 2:42 at the 2009 Yakima race, ran 3:35:34 on Monday.

Other area finishers and their times included Ella Greene of Naches, 3:36:09; Jeff Rau of Cle Elum, 3:49:45; Stanley Bostrom of Yakima, 3:59:46; Kandie Baker of Cle Elum, 4:22:42; Staci Verbrugge and Crystal Towne of Yakima, each timed in 4:34:19; and Robert Williams of Yakima, 5:01:37.

The Boston field included numerous regulars in the Yakima River Canyon Marathon, including Bostrom, who has run each of the 12 YRCM events. Also at Boston were reigning two-time YRCM winner Chuck Engle (2:58:24) of Oregon, four-time Yakima women’s champion Mary Hanna (3:38:52) of Maple Valley, and perennial top-10 placer Cliff Richards (2:59:52), also of Maple Valley.

 

Plenty of big bites await area fisherman

NACHES, Wash. — Any fisherman will tell you, whether or not you catch one fish or reel in your limit on any given day is, your best efforts and skills notwithstanding, an absolute crap shoot.

Maybe the fish won’t be biting.

Maybe the water will be murky.

Maybe you’re waiting on a salmon run that isn’t living up to expectations.

When it comes to fishing, there are no guarantees. Except, at least in Washington, just this one:

A whole bunch of lakes near you will have a whole bunch of trout in them. And, in many if not most cases, those fish will have spent their formative months in a state-run hatchery.

This year, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife will be stocking nearly 13 million trout into 557 lakes across the state. About 3 million of those trout will be “catchables,” fish that in most years range in the 8- to 11-inch-long range but this year — thanks to some changes in the hatchery programs — will average 11 to 13 inches at release.

Another 102,000 will be “jumbos,” 2-year-old fish weighing upwards of a pound each, or surplus hatchery broodstock trout that can get up to 10 pounds and above. Also set for release will be 47,000 triploids, sterile trout averaging 1 1/2 pounds each.

“We do what we can do with anadramous fish runs, but there are no guarantees,” said Matt Mathis, who oversees operations at the WDFW’s Naches Hatchery off South Naches Road between Yakima and Naches. “We don’t know what percentage of (anadramous fish) will return and be able to reproduce.

“But we do know 100 percent of the fish we put in here are going back out … to put a smile on a fisherman’s face. That’s what they get by paying for their license.

“That is the guarantee.”

Backing up that guarantee, though, is quite the operation — even at the local level, with the Naches Hatchery receiving and sending fish (or fish-to-be) to the far corners of the state.

Naches receives its rainbow trout eggs from the Goldendale Hatchery in Klickitat County. A few Mount Whitney rainbow trout, a subspecies that spawns at a slightly different time, come from the Eel Springs Hatchery in Skagit County. Kokanee eggs come from Lake Whatcom in the northwest corner of the state. Cutthroat eggs come from a hatchery in Chelan.

And where do they all go?

Anglers in Yakima and Kittitas counties know all about where the rainbow trout go — stocked, in many cases at a catchable size — into all of the region’s popular fishing lakes that are accessible by a vehicle. If you’re catching fish from Tim’s Pond to Myron Lake, and the I-82 Ponds to the Fio Ritos, you’re catching Naches Hatchery trout.

That will be the future of nearly 80 percent of the rainbow trout that come through Naches. (The rest will go to the Ringold Hatchery on the Columbia River to be foraged upon by tiger muskies growing large enough to dine upon northern pikeminnows.)

Even many lakes that can’t be driven to receive plantings — mostly cutthroat, a few Mount Whitney rainbows. Those fish are hauled in mostly by volunteers on foot or on horseback, as tiny, inch-long fry inside gallon containers stuffed into hefty backpacks.

The kokanee reared in the Naches facility — which may contain as many as 300,000 at one time, in addition to a quarter-million rainbow — are primarily intended for stocking Keechelus Lake and other high-elevation lakes near Snoqualmie Pass.

At any one time, the Naches Hatchery may have a half-million fish at various life stages.

Inside the hatchery facility are 48 shallow troughs in which thousands of tiny fry live, eat and grow.

Outside are another eight “raceways,” in towhich the rainbow fry are moved when they’re roughly 3 months old and still so small that it takes 400 of them to weigh one pound.

Right now the hatchery has about 150,000 rainbow fry in three of the outside raceways; as they grow, they’ll eventually end up filling all eight raceways, roughly 18,000 in each. By October, roughly 60,000 of those will be moved into the facility’s one-third-acre rearing pond. By the time they’re planted into those lower-elevation lakes early next spring, they’ll be 16 months old and a very catchable 12 inches long.

Getting them to that age, of course, isn’t as simple as keeping them fed — though Mathis and his fellow Naches Hatchery specialist, Calvin Lehman, keep the fish nourished with a steady diet of specially-manufactured feed.

They have to monitor the hatchery fish population for diseases and insure the water temperature, both inside and outside, is at the correct level for optimum fish health.

In order to breathe, the fish must have a steady supply of fresh water. That’s provided from 20-foot shallow wells at Naches River level, pumped into the central water chamber and then into the raceways, ultimately feeding right back into the river.

Were there a power outage and the pumps failed, the fish wouldn’t survive. The hatchery has a backup generator that kicks on in the event of a power failure, but the real backup is the perpetual presence of Mathis and Lehman themselves.

Both men are married with families, and those families live in state housing on the hatchery premises. Because the hatchery is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. seven days a week and visitors might drop in at any time for a tour, Mathis and Lehman are usually right there.

At least one of them is always on-call, just in case there’s a power failure and the water stops flowing in and out. At that point, the alarm siren will go off quite loudly — also automatically alerting Mathis and Lehman by pager, cell phone and home phone — until the generator has kicked on and rectified the problem. If the generator doesn’t kick on? Well, that siren will continue to blare until Mathis or Lehman, or both, take care of the issue.

“At all times at least one of us needs to be within 15 minutes,” Mathis said. “It does require a commitment out of your life.”

But only through that commitment can the state make the guarantee: Those lakes will be filled with catchable fish.

When you have the requisite skill to catch them, of course, is another question.

That’s why it’s called fishing as opposed to, say, catching.

Going uphill really quickly: Check this out

YAKIMA, Wash. — You may have heard of the Sharps of Moxee, the snowmobile hillclimb standouts who have pretty much turned the country’s premier uphill snowmobile-racing circuit into their own private playground.

Brothers David and Brad Sharp have been dominating the Rocky Mountain Snowmobile Hillclimb Association (RMSHA) pro masters divisions for years. David has owned this year more than perhaps any other — with one event to go, he’s leading the season standings in all three pro masters classes (stock, modified and improved) — with Brad not far behind in any of the three.

David’s son, David Jr., is a 19-year-old graduate of East Valley who, at the tender age of 16, became the youngest racer in RMSHA’s history — and the first semipro ever — to be named the tour’s racer of the year. Now he’s in the pro classes, ranked in the top five in four of the RMSHA’s most competitive (and most populous) classes, ranked second in two of them.

What does this look like, this going uphill on a snowmobile really fast?

It looks like this.

The video on that link is from last weekend’s Beaver Mountain Hillclimb in Logan, Utah, where David Jr. had the fastest run of the entire day — any class, any snowmobile engine size, any division.

That young man was moving. If you’re looking for a vicarious thrill — yeah, there’s some helmet-cam stuff in there — check it out.

– Scott Sandsberry

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