If you’ve ever felt like you could ski all day, there’s a charity event coming up for you.
The 24-hour Blue Mountain relay returns this year after a one-year hiatus. The event asks teams of skiers to swish down the slopes for 24 hours relay-style.
Pledges collected by participants will be donated to Special Olympics and the Collingwood General and Marine Hospital Foundation.
The 2022 event would have been the fifth annual, but pandemic-related shutdowns prevented the 2021 event from taking place.
One of the 24h Blue Mountain organizers, Michael Ney, said he’s hoping for 35 teams to participate. Registration is open now.
“Our best year ever was 41 teams in 2020, we raised $156,000,” said Ney. “In some regards, we’re basically starting over again this year.”
Teams, said Ney, should ideally be about 10-12 people. With 12 people, each skier or snowboarder can take a 2-hour shift, or two one-hour shifts. The team member doing the runs at the time will have a time chip on them to count runs and track times for prizes.
In 2020, there were 294 participants who completed 7,105 runs
There is at least one team of two people and Ney said there’s a participant who does the whole event on his own with some quick naps in the Cascade Room between hours of skiing.
Ney got the idea for the local event after participating in a similar one at Mont Tremblant.
When looking for local charities to benefit, Ney said he was inspired by the Special Olympics athletes who train at Blue Mountain.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Special Olympics World Championships held at Blue Mountain.
Ney plans to give a nod to the anniversary by including some of the organizers and volunteers who worked at the championships.
The event will include entertainment and activities throughout the 24 hours.
The registration fee of $169 per person covers the cost of lift tickets for those without passes, closing the Smart Alec run for the event, breakfast, and renting the Cascade Room. Each participant is responsible for raising or donating $175 for the charities.
“If we were to get to $120,000 raised this year, I think that would be remarkable,” said Ney. “It would be a stepping stone for future years.”
The event takes place from noon on Feb. 26 to noon on Feb. 27 with the Smart Alec run and a chair on the lift reserved for relay participants.
To register or find out more about the event, visit the website at 24hbluemtn.ca.
