Why Would Anyone Compete in the World’s Most Unbelievable Ski Race?

Alan Ramsay, head of marketing at the Schilthorn ski resort and a veteran racer, leans back in his chair at the end of our restaurant booth. “I don’t think anyone who leaves the start gate isn’t nervous about what’s ahead,” he says. “It’s pushing your limits. How much guts do you have?”

Ramsay delivers this prerace pep talk with a smile, in a lyrical Scottish accent, but we are not comforted. It’s the night before the 79th Mürren Inferno, and my teammates and I, all first-timers, are nervous as hell.

It’s January 2023, and the small Swiss village of Mürren—accessible only by train or cable car—has come alive with anxious energy in advance of the race. This usually quiet mountain oasis is home to only 400 residents, and right now every bed in town is spoken for. Exactly 1,850 racers have shown up to test themselves, and more are on the wait list. Most of the participants are British skiers and Asian tourists, and then there’s us: a few wide-eyed Americans throwing our hats into the maelstrom.

The first winner, Harold Mitchell, completed the descent in one hour, 12 minutes. Today, good skiers can do the 14.9-kilometer course in about 20 minutes; the winner typically requires 15 at most. For the 2023 edition, Europe’s uncharacteristically light snowpack prompted officials to move the end of the course to Mürren instead of Lauterbrunnen, shortening the race to 7.6 kilometers. The elites were gunning to beat ten minutes on the revised layout. The skiers most likely to win have raced here before, earning a higher seed and an earlier start time. “They just keep coming back,” Ramsay says. “It’s highly addictive.”

Tonight, before anyone tries to get a good night’s sleep (doubtful), costumed children and adults line Mürren’s streets. Race officials parade through town with a crude effigy of the devil—dressed in jeans and sneakers—that will be burned at the stake to ward off bad luck. Hollow bells drone out a countdown until the flame is lit, and brass bands perform in face paint as the surrounding crowd waves candles and torches. It’s a raucous scene, with plenty of roasted nuts and hot glühwein to go around. Through it all, you never lose the feeling of tense anticipation.

During the parade, I slip away to call home. I don’t want anyone to worry, but I make sure to mention that I bought helicopter insurance in case I require evacuation from the mountain. My voice catches when I say goodnight to my partner, but I feel a touch overdramatic. It’s an amateur event, I tell myself. How risky can it be? Still, I go to sleep reciting a motto I learned from a Brit at the bar. “Complete, not compete,” he said. “Complete, not compete.”

If this race scared me so much, why was I here? Good question! The short answer is that I was talked into it. In September 2022, professional skier Marcus Caston, a longtime friend, first mentioned the Inferno to me. He and his wife had recently moved from Salt Lake City, where I live, to Engelberg, Switzerland, about 30 miles and two valleys north of Mürren. Caston, photographer Cam McLeod, and filmmaker Tim Jones planned to film an episode of their lighthearted ski series Return of the Turn at the next Inferno, and I could see why the event drew their interest. Skiers are strange to begin with, and what business did a gaggle of Brits, who ski only a few times a year, have descending on the Alps to huck their meat down glacial ice at high speeds? And what’s this about a burning devil? It all felt made for TV.

For the record, I agreed (at first) to go to the Inferno strictly as a print journalist and spectator. I’m an experienced skier, but I don’t come from a racing background. I learned when I was two, and I’ve spent most of my career as an editor covering the sport. But in all that time, I’ve avoided donning a racing suit, except as an ironic costume on closing day of the season. Skiing to win anything other than an après beer has always felt a little perverse to me.

Peer pressure is a hell of a drug. But I believe that pushing your physical and mental limits is a part of the human journey, even when what you’re planning to do gives you jelly legs.

In December, a few weeks before our departure, Caston sent a surprising follow-up text: “Yo, who’s all racing?” Four of us, he explained, had been offered the chance to enter. We’d complete the course individually, and our times would also be added together for a team score.

“Will I die?” I asked, being cheeky. But I was also seriously wondering about the risks of skiing alongside hundreds of other racers for 1,900 vertical feet—at top speed, down an icy course lined by sheer drop-offs.

“Honestly, I have no clue,” he wrote. “I say let’s just show up and find out what it’s about.”

Peer pressure is a hell of a drug. But—here goes part two of why I came here—I believe that pushing your physical and mental limits is a fundamental part of the human journey, even when what you’re planning to do gives you jelly legs. Adventure is not just about achieving a specific goal or breaking a record; it’s about discovering your true potential. When we challenge ourselves beyond what we think is possible, we work toward new levels of strength and resilience. In these moments of uncertainty, we get a little more familiar with who we really are.

Caston put it best. “Stepping out of your comfort zone keeps you young,” he told me. “It’s exciting. Plus, it’s important to be a little uncomfortable. Afterward, things in your real life will seem a little less scary.”

Still, I shuddered. I knew that Caston, Jones, and McLeod, all former racers, had a shot at doing well. Caston could probably even win the thing. All I wanted was to finish without doing serious damage to my freezing limbs. It was generous of them to let me be part of their team, given that I was missing two crucial prerequisites for a ski race: racing skis and a proper race suit. I arrived in the Bernese Alps with my boots and a pair of carving skis, largely unprepared for what was coming.

By seven o’clock on the morning of the event, we’re booted up and crammed into the first of two trams that will take us and the first 50 racers to the top.

Members of our team, called Return of the Turn, were seeded among the first 100, along with other media types and a few lucky randos. Not counting the fear of going first, this was good—at least we’d avoid the massive ruts carved into the course by the racers before us. After the first hundred go out, the rest of the field is sent off according to their previous finishing times. (Newbies bring up the rear.) Competitors leave the gate every three seconds, starting at 8 A.M. and continuing until 3 P.M. So while you start alone, there’s a decent chance you’ll be passed by a faster skier on your way down.

The early-morning air nips our noses; wind swirls the snow and ice. There’s little light pollution in Mürren, so the morning feels even darker. As we load into a second tram, which will take us to the start gate at the top, almost no one speaks. Everyone but me is dressed in a speed suit, helmet on, and some have white medical tape over their cheeks and noses to prevent frostbite. My teammates borrowed their competition suits from friendly members of the Kandahar Ski Club—the British skiing organization whose presence dominates the event, thanks to its Mürren clubhouse—but I couldn’t be persuaded to wear one. I stand firm and ridiculous in my Gore-Tex bibs and baggy jacket.

I’ve felt fear and anxiety while skiing before, but never in such an organized, adrenaline-pumping fashion. During the second tram ride, I think back to the moments before my first (and only) triathlon, my first marathon, my first ski trip to Alaska. I’m terrified, but I also know I’m capable. I’m doing my best to pep-talk myself.

Then, in a much needed moment of levity, the tram operator flips a switch in the quiet darkness and AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” blares from the overhead speakers. The Swiss racers grunt in acknowledgement; the Brits sigh in relief. I laugh obnoxiously. As if the moment were choreographed, everyone stomps their boots and skis in sync, like soldiers readying for battle. The song ends just as the tram stops at our destination. It dawns on me: They’ve done this before, haven’t they?

Light begins to illuminate the jagged surrounding peaks as we spill out onto the top of the Schilthorn. Every 15 minutes, a new load of racers pour from the tram station, then head for the basement floor of the Piz Gloria, a rotating restaurant with a 360-degree view of Bernese Oberland, where the 1969 James Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was filmed. The few women here could easily be Bond girls, I think. The men—well, they’re doing what they can, but they certainly don’t resemble secret agents as they bend, stretch, and contort. One older gentleman asks another for help zipping his speed suit, because… he just can’t… quite… reach… Ah! He’s done it. Let the race begin.

As launch time approaches, we leave the warmth of our shelter and slip down to the start house, where nothing shields us from the elements.

The waiting is unbearable. I watch racers take off in a full tuck down the first pitch. Most take a swig of blue liquor from an unmarked bottle hanging by a string above the start gate. (I follow suit; it tastes like Jägermeister but worse.) My teammates have already gone, and I’m left with Caston’s advice: Stay low and keep your skis flat. With a giant push, I glide through the gate and tuck into the first corner. I’m not quite ready to open up to my top speed—roughly 40 miles per hour; Caston and our teammates top out at 70—but I’m moving, forcing my skis to stay off their edges. The next two skiers overtake me on the narrow track.

“Links!” someone shouts in German as he passes on the left. I fight to keep my breakfast down as I round the next steep corner. From there the course continues through the Engetal to the Schilthorn Hut. It then follows a long, drawn-out S to a spot just below a rocky outcropping with a steep blind rollover, after which comes the challenge of a double-S turn and a sharp right curve. I hold on and just try to breathe. I feel the urge to go faster, but when I see the drop-offs along the course’s edge—no netting—I hold steady.

The course climbs into woodland, crossing the path of the Mauler-hubel chairlift. The official race manual describes this section as “a slight ascent.” In reality, Woodcutters Hill is a steep slope that requires an aggressive surge of skate-skiing and cardiovascular effort to conquer. (I should have done more Rollerblading to prepare.)

Costumed children and adults line Mürren’s streets. Race officials parade through town with a crude effigy of the devil—dressed in jeans and sneakers—that will be burned to ward off bad luck.

The course is starting to fill up, with racers on top of other racers. We hurtle down the mountain on the final leg, hearts thumping as we try to recover from the uphill. The wind whips our faces, stinging our cheeks and keeping us alert at every turn. The world seems to blur into a chaotic smear of white and blue, the towering pine trees that line the course mere streaks in our peripheral vision. The adrenaline rush dulls the edges of consciousness, leaving only a laser-like focus tuned to our skis.

The speed is both intoxicating and unnerving. A soundtrack of scraping edges and the muffled hiss of skis against snow accompanies our descent. The fear that gripped us at the start line transforms into a thrilling blend of determination and euphoria as we barrel toward the finish line: Hey, we might survive this.

As the end draws near, the course seems to stretch and contort, testing my quads. With a burst of energy, I lean into the last turn, feeling the centrifugal force tugging at my body as the finish comes into view. Time regains its flow, and the world snaps back into focus as I cross the line, skis scraping to a halt in a cloud of snow, my heart still racing.

Just as Ramsay predicted, thoughts of next year flood my mind almost immediately. I want to race again, armed with newfound knowledge that makes me no longer a rookie.

I find my teammates in the finish corral; they’ve been here long enough to unbuckle their boots and get coffee. With my time of 14:20 I didn’t come in last, mind you, but the winner—a 21-year-old Swiss racer named Kilian Rufener—was twice as fast, finishing in 7:08. Caston, our team captain, was only 36 seconds behind him, with Jones and McLeod making equally impressive showings. At the finish, Caston remarks on the purity of downhill. “It’s so simple,” he says. “It doesn’t matter how you look, how old or fat you are. It’s just the fastest time wins.”

An hour after our runs, we head back up the mountain, this time as spectators. Both sides of the course are lined with racers who’ve already finished, toasting their relief with beer and champagne, cheering and heckling racers with the fervor of crazed sports fans. Charlie Morton, a twentysomething Kandahar member, is shouting unintelligible encouragement to a club mate in a pink suit.

“Woodcutters is where a lot of it is won or lost,” he says. “If you’re toward the end, you don’t want to humiliate yourself, so you have to slog it out there.” He interrupts my next question to shout at another cluster of skiers skating up the hill. “Bloody go for it, mate,” he yells, clamoring a loud cowbell in their faces. “Push! Push! Push!”

That night we celebrate at the Gondola Bar, a retired tramcar dry-docked at the mountain’s base. Maximum occupancy on a typical night is 12. It’s closer to 40 now, with a dozen more of us spilling onto the snow through the open door, letting the cool air inside.

Our legs are tired, but we dance through the burn to the beat of Spanish techno. We toast to our survival, to being skiers, to being here, and to the prospect of going even faster next year. Farther down the hill, a DJ plays Taylor Swift remixes and other pop songs at the Hotel Eiger for a crowd filling the bar. I overhear a young racer from Germany, Finn Stuetz, lament his failure to beat his father’s time. He raises a drink in a copper mug, shouting, “To next time!” Then he works off his disappointment on the dance floor.

We want nothing more than to find our beds, remove our boots, and greet sweet slumber. But adrenaline keeps us moving. The next morning, we’ll wake up hungover, the fear and speed that consumed us replaced by a heady mix of accomplishment and relief.