After skinning to the top of the same run for the 60th time in as many hours, Ben Eck and Jerimy Arnold turned off their headlamps and took in the stars. The two New England skiers were the finalists in an uncommon event: the second annual Last Skier Standing race in Jackson, New Hampshire. At 10 A.M. on Saturday, February 6, they and 80 other athletes began to lap a 1,000-vertical-foot course. They would climb and descend it once every hour until they couldn’t do it anymore.
On Monday morning, the third-to-last skier standing called it quits. By 10 P.M. that day, Eck, 29, and Arnold, 40, had been slogging it out head-to-head for 18 laps, vying for the title of Finisher. Second place would take home the First Place DNF title no small honor.