Never content to just set new records in races he’s already participated in, endurance cyclist Jay Petervary left the country last week to take part in a new and ambitious race in Kyrgyzstan.

The Silk Road Mountain Race is an unsupported 1,000-mile race in the Tian Shan mountains near Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. This is the first year of the event. The route follows gravel, double and single track, and forgotten military roads through isolated high-elevation valleys surrounded by 16,000-foot peaks.

Petervary, of Victor, has decades of ultra-endurance cycling experience, having raced the Tour Divide, the Iditarod Trail Invitational, the Ride Across America, the Italy Divide and other long-distance events many times, but he said he has some nerves approaching this race.

On July 30, the New York Times reported that two American cyclists and two European cyclists were killed while touring through Tajikistan, which borders Kyrgyzstan. ISIS members intentionally hit the cyclists with a truck. Petervary said he is aware of that incident but doesn’t want fear to mar his race.

“I’ve ridden through downtown LA and that’s dangerous. I’ve ridden through grizzly country outside of Island Park and that’s dangerous,” he said.

Another challenge is that there aren’t a lot of information sources online to help Petervary predict how the race will go, so he has cobbled together as much knowledge as possible and is prepared to complete the whole event without getting food or water from villages. He doesn’t think that will be necessary; he has heard that the people of that region are extremely welcoming. But that hospitality can pose its own issues. When Petervary is in race mode, he doesn’t have time to accept extended meals or tea, but he doesn’t want to offend his hosts either.

“I’m very well prepared for this event but what happens out there is in a lot of ways outside of my control,” he said.

Inevitably, there is also the question of the language barrier, as well as the stress of traveling to Central Asia for the first time. The race also passes three military checkpoints on the China-Kyrgyzstan border, which Petervary has prepared for with passport copies and possible bribe money stashes.

Petervary’s wife, Tracey, herself an accomplished racer, will also be participating in the Silk Road Mountain Race. She has a teammate, Mark Seaburg, with whom she has raced the Cape Epic in South Africa. Petervary is happy that she will also get to experience the spectacular landscape and foreign culture while not being forced to race at his pace (which is unsustainable by most people’s definition).

The race started Aug. 18 and wraps up Sept. 1. Find more information at silkroadmountainrace.cc.

The youngest motocross stars in Driggs are heading back to Tennessee this month for the amateur national championship.

Last year Max Daniels, who is now 7 years old, raced nationals at the historic Loretta Lynn Ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee. This year he’ll be joined by his twin brother Luke. Their older brother Davis is also an alternate this year.

Max and Luke qualified for the event, which the largest amateur motocross race in the world, by placing first and fourth respectively at a Horn Rapids race in Washington last month.

The boys have been riding and racing for a long time, given their young age. They spend a lot of time training on moto tracks in Idaho Falls and Salmon, where their grandparents live. Their dad Dan maintains their bikes, gives them pointers, and rides with them, while their mom Leilani is in charge of feeding, cheering, taking pictures, cleaning, and other essential tasks.

Racing is almost like a part-time job; Leilani works at Teton Valley Community School during the week then the family hits the road with their toy hauler every Friday to travel to events around the region.

The diminutive daredevils’ favorite part of racing is hitting jumps. The twins both ride a 55cc, while Davis races on a 65cc bike. Max is proud to say he’s pretty good at getting the hole shot, meaning he’s frequently first off the start line.

It’s been a muddy year of racing so far, which is both bad and good; muddy conditions make the tracks much more challenging for the boys, but it’s good practice for the Tennessee course, which is often wet.

The Loretta Lynn Ranch only opens its track to motocross racing once per year, and Leilani said the whole six-day event is amazing; a small city pops up that is dedicated to dirt bikes and everyone brings golf carts to travel around the ranch.

“Racing is only one small part of the experience,” she said. “It’s definitely about southern hospitality.”

There are food vendors, music shows, and sponsorship events. The boys’ favorite part of last year’s nationals was tubing down the creek and playing on a rope swing.

Only 42 racers from across the country qualify for each category, which means the boys are in elite company and will be lining up against more than double the number of competitors they usually encounter. Luke and Max have lofty goals of placing well in the pack but their mom said they also have great attitudes and understand that riding safely and skillfully is the best way to succeed.

These trips aren’t cheap. While the boys receive generous parts discounts and gear sponsorship, travel expenses add up for the family. That’s why they created their T-Rex Moto-X brand. The boys came up with the simple but deeply awesome logo of a tyrannosaurus rex riding a wheelie on a dirt bike.

With the help of local companies Laid Back Designs and Pine Needle Embroidery, the Daniels sell hats and shirts emblazoned with the image to raise racing funds.

Aaron Gardner of Victor recently returned from a fat bike race in Alaska, where he rode 350 miles from Knik through the vast interior to McGrath.

In January 2017, Gardner was the only finisher in the 200-mile Fat Pursuit race in Island Park. Incredibly cold temperatures and deep snow felled his competitors and forced him to use all of his mountaineering experience to ride and trudge to the finish. Race director and long-time fat biking veteran Jay Petervary awarded him a free entry to this year’s Iditarod Trail Invitational.

Gardner said that with two kids and a demanding job, his time on the bike is limited, but he felt prepared when he arrived in Alaska.

“The lousy skiing conditions in Teton Valley this winter definitely made training for the race easier. With the combination of a mild snow year and the amazing groomed single track trails we have in Victor (Huge thanks to TVTAP and all of the volunteer groomers!), I was able to be reasonably fit at the start.”

He did extensive equipment testing and research of the route, and said by the time February rolled around, “I was pretty sick of thinking about it and just wanted to start riding. Pre-race jitters are nothing new, but I cannot describe how big of a relief it was hearing the starting pistol fire.”

The Iditarod Trail Invitational course follows the historic route of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race and racers on bikes, skis or on foot depend on snowmachine paths that cut through river valleys and over windy passes.

“My reasons for doing the race were to have an adventure and see part of Alaska,” Gardner said. “My plan was to simply ride at my own pace and wherever that put me, so be it. As usual though I did get slightly sucked into the competitive spirit, which led to getting less sleep than I would have preferred.”

On the afternoon of Feb. 25, the race started fast. The field of racers became stretched out after the first day, when the leaders rode through the night and most of the other racers stopped and slept. Wind and deep snow challenged Gardner on the second and third day, but he later learned that racers half a day behind him had it even worse.

“No surprise, but Alaska delivered a variety of difficult conditions,” Gardner said. “It started snowing the first evening but remained rideable until the second day when the wind picked up. The strong winds drifted snow onto the trail and erased it, which led to miles of walking. When the storm cleared out on the third day, the temperature dropped. The coldest temp I dealt with during the race was -28 F, which ‘isn’t that bad’ and ‘kinda warm’ according to some of the Fairbanks, Alaska-based riders I was around. But -28 definitely got my attention and required absolute focus on layering and venting in order to not let it turn into a bad experience. Thankfully, I made it through the cold with hardly any discomfort.”

In an old burn area late in the race, Gardner and a couple of fellow riders encountered bison.

“I had no idea there were bison in Alaska but, like everything else, they were seemingly twice the size of their cousins in the lower 48,” Gardner said. “One bull in particular was watching us. What do we do? Should we shine a light on it? Will that just make it mad? Eventually we tried the light and it made the herd move off the trail enough that we felt comfortable passing.”

He said the final miles were slow because of drifting snow. While riding in soft snow in Victor had paid off, he was happy to see the finish after a long day of pedaling.

“The food and hosts at the finish were incredible and I ate with gusto,” he remembered.

Gardner finished on March 1 in fifth place with a time of three days and 23 hours. He is pleased with the placement, saying it was better than he could ever have expected.

“But hats off to all the entrants in the race,” he added. “It takes a special mindset and a lot of dedication to pursue and enjoy this level of type two fun.”

While Gardner knows that post-expedition depression is a very real thing and has dealt with it in the past, he said this time that coming back to real life has been very easy.

“I’m not sure if it’s experience or my age or my family that makes it easier to come home now, but I feel great,” Gardner said.

Gardner doubts he will attempt the Iditarod Trail Invitational a second time.

“Overall I had a very positive experience, but I’m not someone that likes to do the same thing over and over,” Gardner said. “I tend to move on to new adventures and experiences. Right now going camping and rock climbing with my wife and two boys sounds like a pretty great adventure.”

Rob Young has ridden a sled down Table Mountain.

One spring day in 2012, he watched Table from his home perch and knew when he saw the morning sun’s glare off the peak that conditions were ripe for a first descent.

He set out at 3 a.m. with similar intentions as a skier on a spring tour: beat the sun, be off the summit by noon. Except that he didn’t want the snow to soften into corn with the day’s heat. He wanted it as firm as possible for sledding.

He shouldered his European touring sled, called a rodel, to carry it up the steep Face Trail. On the plateau he leashed the rodel to his fanny pack and dragged it behind him. After he reached the summit he sat up there for what felt like a long time, enjoying the quiet and the views.

Then he descended. Rodels are carved from ash and have steering reins and mobile horns that the pilot can steer with gentle foot nudges and weight shifting. On Table, Young used a touring rodel with runners that had a 20-degree cant, better for planing than carving. He had waxed the stainless steel runners as methodically as a Nordic skier would.

He couldn’t sled from the summit block because it was too rocky, but he clambered off the face, sat astride the rodel, and started gliding downhill. He wanted to cover as much ground as possible without losing momentum, so he barely turned and instead rocketed down the hill, reaching speeds up to 60 mph. He slalomed through a couple tree groves and made it to the first flat step on the ascent before coming to a halt and hefting the sled back over his shoulders to hike back to the parking lot.

“Extreme becomes a rather worthless word and I don’t like to use it about sledding,” he said. “All I’m concerned about it the enjoyment.”

Young has lived in the Tetons full time for 40 years and has done every kind of skiing known to man. He got bored of it. That’s when he bought a ’65 Flexible Flyer, the iconic American sled with a cult following. He found it too flimsy, though, and impossible to control.

“Most of what we do in the U.S. is the slide-and-scream, where you find a short steep hill with a run out jump on whatever you can find,” he said. “If you turn it’s an accident.”

Google searches in English didn’t yield anything worthwhile but when Young utilized a little basic German he came across rodeln (sledding). Rodel types are broken into many categories, including rennrodel, which resembles luge on an icy artificial track. Young decided to order a sport rodel instead, from a company in the Italian Alps.

No one was around to teach him to pilot his new purchase, so he figured it out through trial and error. Now he has the technique dialed and enjoys teaching others on the Packsaddle Estates track, which he and his neighbors groom by snowshoe.

“Nothing says you have to go max warp speed with rodel because you have a good amount of control and braking power,” he said. “A beginner can feel really good on most slopes.”

Young has developed a small but dedicated sledder gang that includes his wife Karen and friends like Mike Piggot, Ben Winship and Greg Creamer. He explained that when he introduces some people to rodeln, they light up.

“The joy comes back,” he said. “They get something out of it that skiing used to provide. … As far as I know I’m the only one who brought rodeln here. I’ve been proselytizing and evangelizing. I’m not selling anything besides the idea, the concept. It’s something else to do that’s fun and applies to winter sports — it’s something you do out your back door and it makes use of terrain that’s normally ignored.”

Snowmobile trails offer great opportunities for sledding. Young said that when the track is firm, Relay Ridge can be a phenomenal three-mile ride—after you hike all the way up, of course. Even true backcountry sledding is possible when conditions align perfectly, similar to cross-country crust cruising in skiing.

Young is advocating for Grand Targhee to allow rodeln on the Teton Vista Traverse, saying that it would provide a unique European experience to visitors with no more liability than alpine skiing.

He even has a dryland set-up, a rollenrodel, to play with during the summer. He and Wildwood Room owner Bill Boney have tried out their summer sleds on Old Pass Road and Ski Hill Road, right next to the long-boarders and road bikers.

Young is careful to specify that rodeln isn’t luge, however.

“That’s nothing more than throwing somebody down a trough,” he said. “When I go out I can watch the birds.”

On Young’s Table adventure, he recalls seeing a blue grouse and hearing a pygmy owl and a squawking swarm of Clark’s nutcrackers. When he hiked down from Table, he discovered fresh bear tracks heading in the same direction he had gone.

The Big Holes should be sledding well this week, since the Pedigree Stage Stop sled dog race just came through.

“They make the snow very compacted,” Young said. “It’s delightful, as long as you get around what the dogs leave behind. You can’t wax for that.”

You can watch some of his adventures on his YouTube channel “Turboganz.”

On the evening of Friday, Feb. 9, a young man and his friends decided they wanted to drive up the groomed Teton Canyon trail. Disregarding the road closure signs, they made it as far as Reunion Flat Campground near Alta, Wyoming, almost two miles in, before getting stranded. The driver was unsuccessful in getting help from any friends to tow his Ford Explorer out.

Law enforcement officers were authorized by the forest service to go in and attempt to extract the vehicle on Saturday, but their truck got stuck as well. An attempt to recover that vehicle was successful but the SUV is still there.

District Ranger Jay Pence said that the driver will receive violation notices, fines, and will have to pay for the expensive recovery attempts. The forest service will be hiring a contractor to tow out the SUV.

“It’s a violation of Idaho, Wyoming and federal law, plus a very rude thing to do,” Pence said. “It’s very hard without specialized grooming equipment to buff out those ruts.”

Many of the trail users in Teton Canyon pay for the privilege, whether through snowmobile registrations or donations to Teton Valley Trails and Pathways’ grooming program. According to TVTAP’s grooming report, most of the damage from the two vehicles was repaired by Tuesday morning.

Pence said that every winter, the forest service sees a couple of stranded vehicles on closed roads, but that it’s a more frequent occurrence in the Big Holes. This year the Teton side of the valley has seen several wayward cars —there are currently two up Darby Canyon in the same situation, one with Minnesota license plates.

“When it gets nice people tend to think they can treat groomed trails as plowed roads,” Pence said. “Then they hit a soft spot.”

He advised that all users check online or at the district office about road closures before they go on federal lands.

Idaho has nine 12,000+ foot peaks: Borah, Leatherman, Mt. Church, Diamond, Mt. Breitenbach, Lost River, Mt. Idaho, Donaldson, and Hyndman. In the winter of 2016-17, Teton Valley resident Mark Ortiz skied all of them, and evidence indicates he’s the only person ever to have done so.

All but two of the peaks are in the Lost River Range in central Idaho. The Lost River Range is home to Borah, Idaho’s tallest mountain ,and has distinctive geology that creates layer-cake-like bands of cliffs on its peaks. Diamond Peak is in the Lemhi Range just east of the Lost River Range, and Hyndman is a bit to the southwest in the Pioneer Range.

Ortiz, who migrated east from Boise half a dozen years ago, said that at the start of every winter he throws together a list of ski objectives to whittle away at through the season. The nine peaks found their way onto his list, and the weather proved to be ideal for chasing big lines when the snowpack stabilized in the spring. Last year’s list had 41 ideas, most of which he described as “a little outlandish.”

He documented his mission and edited it down to a 12-minute slice of big mountains and raffish charm. The film will be featured at the Winter Wildlands Alliance Backcountry Film Festival at the Wildwood Room, at 7705 Lupin Drive in Victor, this Friday, Jan. 12.

Ortiz had partners for only a couple peaks and attempted the majority of his missions solo.

“I didn’t want to drag people along for a misadventure,” he said.

There was limited beta available for most of the peaks. Borah and Leatherman are skied relatively often (for mountains in sparsely populated areas of Idaho, anyway) but the others required a lot of research and a good deal of wandering around.

“It added to the allure of the mission,” Ortiz said about the uncertainty.

He said Mt. Idaho was the coolest ski line, one he would actually recommend to other skiers. Some of the other peaks were a little less enticing. Mt. Church, the last summit on his checklist, required a 15-mile bike ride to the trailhead because Ortiz’s minivan didn’t have the clearance to attempt the access road. Then he faced an eight mile walk through grasslands and scree fields, in spring when river crossings were at their highest.

Several peaks took multiple attempts. He finally skied from the summit of Lost River Peak on his birthday, after three tries.

“It’s a good thing I’m stubborn as s—,” he said.

Ortiz, who can often be found throwing 360s at Grand Targhee with dreadlocks flowing from underneath his helmet, works at Anicca Bags and skis on Segos.

His priority isn’t stellar filmmaking or a bigger message.

“It’s about skiing first and foremost,” he said. One word of caution: there may or may not be nudity in the film.

He will continue making short edits and films and plotting out more peak bagging and general shenanigans.

Admission to the film festival, which is sponsored by NOLS Teton Valley, is $10, and the doors open at 5:30 p.m. Films start at 7. Beer, wine and dinner will be available for purchase. Proceeds support Teton Valley Trails and Pathways in its human-powered recreation and conservation efforts.

Last weekend in Thaiwoo, China, Jaelin Kauf, who grew up skiing at Grand Targhee Resort, racked up the two World Cup mogul podiums necessary to receive a bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.

Although the U.S. women’s mogul team is fiercely competitive and in China five U.S. women packed the top ten in the first event, the 21-year-old is now guaranteed an Olympic spot.

“It’s so huge to be able to accomplish a goal as big as the Olympics. It’s honestly a dream come true and I’m so happy I can start to focus now on making the best of it,” she said.

Kauf, who started her ascendancy on the mogul world stage in 2016, took fifth at this season’s first World Cup in Ruka, Finland and has only gained momentum since. On Dec. 21, she netted her first World Cup win in standard moguls. She has taken several podiums in dual moguls, but single or standard moguls is the only mogul event featured in the Olympics. Kauf took second by a slim margin on Dec. 22 and retained the overall World Cup leader’s jersey.

“Jaelin introduced herself to the world this week,” said U.S. Ski Team head mogul coach Matt Gnoza during an interview with U.S. Ski and Snowboard. “It’s great to see all the work she put in during the prep period pay off. She proved she’s one of the fastest mogul skiers and, with this week’s performance, she has proven that she can dominate in both singles and duals.”

Kauf came back to the states after a few hectic weeks of travel and will have four events in North America in January, first in Calgary, Alberta, then two in Utah. The pre-Olympic season will finish up in Tremblant, Quebec. She said she’s very happy to be staying on this continent for the next month, as long flights to Europe and Asia can take a toll on athletes. Even better, a large Teton Valley support group is planning to make the trek south to Deer Valley on Jan. 10 and 11 to cheer her on.

Immediately after landing on the tarmac in Salt Lake City, Kauf returned to Teton Valley for a short stint of relaxation and family time before the next set of World Cup events.

“The welcome here at home has been incredible and everyone is wishing me good luck and congrats. It’s amazing,” she said. “Everyone is so proud and I feel so lucky to come home to Teton Valley.”

The Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee is rolling out a pilot program of trail signage to reduce conflict between humans and bears in the Teton Valley area.

Signs warning mountain bikers of potential bear encounters are now placed on Mill Creek and on the Great Western Trail at the top of Pine Creek Pass, two trails where there is heavy bike travel and frequent bear sightings.

This is a first effort in an expanded plan of the IGBC, which includes representatives from the US Forest Service, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and state wildlife agencies. The action is in response to increased numbers of trail users and more interactions with bears.

One incident that prompted this was the death of an off-duty Forest Service ranger last year. He was mountain biking in Montana near Glacier National Park when he ran into a grizzly, which attacked and killed him.

“We’ve had case after case,” said Gregg Losinski, who is a chairman of the IGBC as well as an Idaho Fish and Game conservation educator.

Losinski worked on a similar project in Slovakia, which is also seeing heightened mountain biker-bear conflict. A video of a grizzly chasing a cyclist in Slovakia went viral earlier this year. Getting the signs installed there required less bureaucratic effort than in the states.

“The amount of détente coming up with this simple verbiage was incredible,” said Losinksi.

He stressed that it’s especially important for mountain bikers to be vigilant and follow the posted advisories because they’re moving much faster than hikers. He also advised that riders carry bear spray on their persons and keep it easily accessible, not on their bikes.

“People in the Teton area need to know they’re always in griz country,” he said. “They don’t realize that the Big Holes are griz country, that the whole Snake River corridor is. They’re coming back.”

The committee is also installing signs on Forest Service land in the Palisades, in Island Park and in Harriman State Park.

“We don’t want people to be afraid, just be aware,” he said.

For the first time ever, the Adventure Racing World Championship will be held in the United States, and even better, it’s going to start at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort, and three residents from the Teton Valley will be racing.

Abby Broughton, Jason Popilsky, Fred Most and a fourth teammate from New Zealand will join 59 other co-ed teams in racing for up to six days. They’ll cover 450 miles from Jackson to the finish line in Casper. They will travel by foot, mountain bike, vertical rope and packraft through the remote and scenic Wyoming backcountry, functioning with minimal sleep while navigating the route and finding checkpoints.

This is the fifth year of the Cowboy Tough series, a race based out of Casper. It’s the first time the race will be the world championship. Broughton and Popilsky have raced three of the Cowboy Tough races and stood on top of the podium twice.

Since the race details were released, they have spent hours each day planning gear, nutrition and sleep. They put together a whole spreadsheet devoted to logistics and will use 20 different topography maps.

“The race starts way before the race starts,” said Popilsky. “It’s mountains of work. The teams that are going to do well are the ones who are organized.”

They found that their experience directing the Teton Ogre 8- and 24-Hour Adventure Races has helped them better plan for their own races. Popilsky explained that they now better understand the thought process behind the route selections.

“They’re getting it dialed in as race directors,” he added. “They’ve been learning as we’ve been learning.”

Physical preparation is also an important component. They spend every weekend riding and tromping around in the wilds of Idaho and Wyoming.

“I’ve been working on training when I’m tired,” said Broughton, who doesn’t love the sleep deprivation aspect of adventure racing.

Because the race is in the country, U.S. teams were able to enter a race lottery rather than qualifying as foreign teams had to. Broughton and Popilsky found a third teammate, a young Kiwi with adventure racing experience, and their final puzzle piece is Fred Most, a ski and bike patroller at Grand Targhee.

“He’s an amazing athlete,” Popilsky said of Most. “He’s embracing it, and he’s really game.”

The Teton Valley team is one of the few teams without financial sponsors, and the race organizers aren’t touting them as contenders, but they’re confident in their abilities.

“We don’t have huge expectations, but I think we can do really well by just racing our own race,” Popilsky said. “We’re a wild card team for sure.”

To follow the race in real time, visit www.cowboytoughwy.com/tracking starting on Aug. 10, or watch them start in person at the base of the Tram. Broughton and Popilsky are optimistic about racing on home soil, because they have the advantages of knowing the terrain, not traveling beforehand, and having local support.

“There’s something great about knowing you have a community out there checking in on you,” said Broughton.