Roughly 350 racers begin Spring Mountain’s annual 5K Snowshoe race. Photo by John Worthington | The Reporter.
Racers endure single-digit temperatures, but enjoy the natural snow base on slopes
Roughly 350 snowshoe enthusiasts braved frigid single-digit temperatures Saturday morning to race up and down slopes at Spring Mountain Ski Area in the 20th annual Snowshoe Race.
“It’s pretty close to 0-degrees, and to have this many people come out is incredible,” said race director Ed Myers. “These people are tough.”
As racers gathered at the start line for the 5K race, Ryan Beltz, executive director of the Perkiomen Watershed Conservancy, the event’s host, informed the crowd that the race, the largest in the nation based on last year’s number of participants, is once again in contention for the title.
“We are only competing with one other race in Traverse City, Michigan” to hold on to the designation as nation’s largest, Beltz said.
Myers started the race in the early 2000s as an independent event, featuring just 50 racers. To grow the race, he received permission from Spring Mountain owner Rick Buckman, a longtime friend, to hold the event at the Spring Mountain Ski Area. The Perkiomen Watershed Conservancy got involved a few years later, further extending the race’s reach.
While snowshoeing remains a primarily European sport, it has experienced growing popularity in the United States, with the 2025-2026 Snowshoe World Championships held in Calumet County, Wisconsin.
“It’s an important sport. It’s a great way to build resilience against the cold and fatigue,” said race winner Chris O’Sullivan. “This race specifically, you want to quit the entire time because it’s so cold and exhausting. But when you finish, you feel such a great sense of accomplishment.”
While some races at Spring Mountain in recent years have seen less than ideal conditions because of mild winters, this year’s race went off without a hitch, courtesy of the colder temperatures and above-average snowfall.
“The natural snow gives us a nice big base on the top and beefs everything up even more,” said Spring Mountain operations manager John Brown. “It covers the edges and makes the slope look nicer. So it builds that winter atmosphere.”
“With the natural snow, it makes the course more interesting,” added Beltz. “We can extend the race out into the woods, which we haven’t been able to do in years.”
The top three finishers were Sullivan, Derek Reinhold and Stephen Kraus. The fastest female was Laurel Carey. Most of the racers completed the course by the one-hour mark before enjoying some warm apple cider and other treats at the lodge.
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