Rick and Chris Kopf at the finish line of the Grand Mountain Elk Traverse. Photo courtesy of Rick and Chris Kopf.
When brothers Rick and Chris Kopf started out on their mission to compete in the Grand Mountain Elk Traverse, a 40 mile cross country ski race between Crested Butte and Aspen, they had three goals in mind: 1) Do not die. 2) Finish. 3) Don’t be last. Mission accomplished.
Rick, an attorney living in Lake Highlands with his wife Ingrid and three grown children, and Chris, who recently moved from LH to live full-time in Colorado with his wife Francene and their three school-age daughters, finished the race in only 15 hours. “Really, the first goal was to pacify our wives and friends who challenged our sanity,” they wrote in a journal they kept to document their adventure. “If we did not finish, we knew we would HAVE to enter again next year.”
Looking back, the brothers admit the journey was a leap of faith. “We really did not know what we did not know. We did not know how far 40 miles was. We did not know how hard climbing close to 7,000 vertical feet was. Would we make it around Death Pass or stumble and fall into the darkness and the rushing water below? We did not know whether we would ski or fall from the top of Star Pass. We did not know if we could vent the heat and sweat properly to avoid becoming an icicle. We are thankful for the advice and input of many, but as one advisor told us – you really don’t understand until you finish.”
Photo courtesy of Rick and Chris Kopf.
Though Rick and Chris were together every second of the race, they had to train separately. Rick is an attorney for Munsch Hardt Kopf & Harr in Dallas and Chris is a real estate broker for Coldwell Banker Bighorn in Colorado. They did their planning and strategizing by phone and email, and Rick trained on roller skis in Dallas weather, while Chris had the advantage of natural acclimation.
“That last 40 minutes we pushed hard and passed two teams,” they journaled. “We just wanted to be done!” At the finish, over the microphone they heard, “Here they come, the Kopf Brothers!” After four months of hard training and 40 miles of tough travel, they had made it. “Rick and I looked at each other and the emotions ran high as we high fived each other as the weight of the moment hit us.”
You can view the Kopf Brothers photos here. Congratulations, guys, on your mission accomplished.
