Madison Rose Ostergren: On the way down, I like got full primal. Like I just, ended up being like, ahh, ahh, ahh. Like I just couldn’t even control what was coming out of my mouth. I think it was more just like a release of like, this is painful and I am like in pain and I’m releasing this, like, this noise. It was kind of funny.
Michael Roberts: That’s Madison Rose Ostergren, a professional big mountain skier from Jackson Hole, Wyoming, talking about her experience this past summer in a peculiar mountain sports event known, ironically, as the Picnic. It’s not an organized race. There are no sponsors, no aid stations, no medallions for finishers. It’s just something you do alone or with friends, and it involves biking into the mountains, a long swim in a very cold lake, and un-roped alpine climbing.
Sounds nuts, right? It is. But the Picnic is not the only strange and creative sufferfest of its kind. In recent years, people all over have created outrageous multi-sport contests that are equal parts grueling and just plain silly.
In Santa Fe, New Mexico, some of my Outside magazine colleagues participate in the unofficial Plaza to Peak race, where you bike from the middle of town to the base of Ski Santa Fe at 10,000 feet, then click into alpine touring skis and…
