Man skis 1,101 days straight

written by Matt Renoux 9NEWS Mountain Reporter
posted by Dan Boniface Web Producer

Diehard skiers can often be heard proudly proclaiming 100 or 200 days on the hill a year. However, that number pales in comparison to what Copper Mountain resident Rainer Hertrich has accomplished.

Hertrich decided to see how many consecutive days he could ski in one year, which lead to two years and now more than three years later, he still hasn't stopped.

"So, it's just over three years on Halloween and now we're kicking into year four," said Hertrich.

To date Hertrich says he has skied more than 1,000 days in a row; 1,101 to be exact.

"I have not missed a day yet," Hertrich said.

He keeps track of each day, each run and the vertical feet he's skied on a Suunto wrist watch, which also transfers all the ski data to a computer for documentation.

"I'm at 37,000,000 vertical feet," said Hertrich.

Then in the summer when the snow melts in Colorado, Hertrich heads to other states. "When the snow melts in Colorado, I head out to Timberline, Mount Hood, Oregon, and I stop in Utah and ski and then stop in Idaho," said Hertrich.

When the snow then melts at those places, he goes south, way south to Chile where, if he can't find a open ski area, he finds a snowy slope to ski.

"As soon as I get down there, the priority is getting to a ski area or snow actually," said Hertrich.

On his quest he says he broke the world record for consecutive days on the slope a long time ago.

"The old world record was 365 consecutive days," Hertrich said.

Now he's just skiing for himself, through the bad weather, bad falls and injuries. Taking one run, one day at a time - all 1,101 of them.