History
The Ski to Sea has its origins in the Mount Baker Marathons of 1911–1913. The early races ran from the city of Bellingham to the top of Mount Baker and back. The event was canceled after a runner fell into a crevasse. The Ski to Sea would be a toned-down version of those races where people race from the ski slopes of Mount Baker to Bellingham Bay.
The race was first proposed in a letter written in 1966 from Fred Elsethagen to Bill Herb, the president of the Bellingham Chamber of Commerce. The name of the race came from the Bellingham slogan of "Sea to Ski in Sixty Minutes", referring to the proximity of Mount Baker's ski slopes to Bellingham, which sits on a bay of the Strait of Georgia.
The first official Ski to Sea race premiered 1973 as a side event to "Blossom Time". The first race had 177 people racing in a total of fifty teams. During the first four years, the legs of the race were run separately, and their times added up to produce a total team time; this left racers and spectators waiting several hours after the race concluded to find out who had won. Since 1977 the race has been a continuous event, with the exception of 2008 when the canoe leg was cancelled because of unsafe river conditions.
By 1977, the Ski to Sea Race had become so popular that the entire Blossom Time festival was renamed Blossom Time Ski to Sea. Six years later, "Blossom Time" was removed and the event became known simply as the Ski to Sea. Even the parade was renamed the Ski to Sea Parade. Today the Ski to Sea is considered an entire weekend-long event that is centered around the race. More than 400 teams with over three thousand racers participate in the race. Tens of thousands of spectators gather along the sidelines to watch and participate in fair-like events throughout Bellingham, Ferndale and Fairhaven near the finish line at Marine Park.
Read more about this topic: Ski To Sea Race
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