One Thursday afternoon in late February, Cam Smith went to Clark’s Market for some groceries.Not long after ducking into the store, someone stopped him. Then someone else. There were high fives over the avocados and hugs in every aisle. The congratulations continued into the checkout line. What was meant to be a quick errand turned into an hour-long grocery store victory lap.
But Smith being Smith, his bushy red beard and easy smile made him approachable even in the chaos. “I guess I should budget more time for things like that right now,” he said. Just one week earlier, Smith and his teammate Anna Gibson raced the mixed relay at ski mountaineering’s Olympic debut and finished fourth — a result that put an unassuming U.S. duo in the mix with seasoned European powerhouses. For Smith, already a hometown hero in Crested Butte, it was the first time he felt the scale of the sport he’d dedicated so much of his life to.
“The Olympics resonated with people in a way that nothing I’ve ever done has resonated with people,” he said. “What we were doing really felt like it meant something — it lifted people up, inspired them, made them feel proud. So many people felt like they were a part of it.”
Smith’s Olympic moment was more than ten years in the making, yet it all began with a single, humbling day at Lake Irwin in 2014, when Smith DNF’ed (did not finish) his first ski mountaineering race.
“I somehow got my skins off at the top, then crashed all the way down — I had never skied powder before!” he said. “I was soaked, my skins were soaked, and I couldn’t get them back on. It was humbling, but I thought it was a really cool sport.” Smith was a student at Western Colorado University when he first tried skimo, getting into it alongside his sister, Zoe. He had a vague sense there was a bigger world out there — other races, world championships — but his focus back then was simply to figure out the mechanics: skin, transition, ski, repeat.
Ski mountaineering, or skimo, is a funky blend of Nordic racing, alpine racing, and mountaineering. Athletes climb and descend mountains using specialized equipment: skis with climbing skins, lightweight boots, and bindings that allow quick transitions between uphill and downhill modes. Races test both speed and technical skill, with formats ranging from short sprints and relays to long individual or team courses covering thousands of vertical feet.
Skimo has long been centered in Europe, where deep talent pools, technical terrain, and well-funded national programs define the sport’s highest level. The International Ski Mountaineering Federation (ISMF) oversees competition, including the World Cup circuit and biennial World Championships. This year, the sport made its Olympic debut, bringing it to a broader global audience. Organizers chose the sprint and mixed relay formats to showcase its speed, intensity, and technical demands in a more spectator-friendly format.
In the United States, skimo has grown slowly over the last 25 years, concentrated in small but passionate pockets — Crested Butte among the most influential. Joe Risi, director of COSMIC Ski Mountaineering Race Series, remembers the early days when CB athletes like Bryan Wickenhauser, Jari Kirkland, Travis Scheefer, and others dominated the skimo landscape.
“There was this first wave of elite athletes, all from CB. They were fully outfitted, sponsored — they called themselves the ‘CB Mafia.’ It was legit. People were crushing it, they were really serious.” Crested Butte’s technical terrain, uphill routes, and national championships pushed the sport forward, although it didn’t rise meteorically. In fact, as the crop of elite athletes grew older, Risi said the scene almost petered out. But by the time Smith signed up for his first skimo race, a new generation of racers was showing up — notably, a few college kids from Western.
“Coaches were reaching out — ‘hey we have a few athletes who are interested in this thing, can you hook them up with registration?’” Risi recalls. “It was this new era of kids coming onto the scene needing a little help.”
Smith took full advantage of Western’s support. After that first humbling day at Lake Irwin, he was hooked. He started to chase every opportunity to race, including the Grand Traverse and the Power of Four in Aspen — two of Colorado’s longest and most storied courses. He raced his first Grand Traverse (GT) in 2015 with Zoe, where the team “finished solidly mid pack.”
With each race, Smith set new goals for himself, empowered by the small victories of the race before. He competed across Colorado and Utah, sometimes standing on the podium and sometimes getting beaten by some of the older “CB Mafia” folks. Risi remembers seeing Smith at those early races, where he was struck more by Smith’s demeanor and persistence than by his results.
“I’ve organized or worked over 200 races, and Cam’s been to at least half of them,” Risi said. “He’s always been super humble and willing to help behind the scenes. A lot of people have a lot of attitudes and feelings around endurance sports…but Cam never had a meltdown. He was always excited. He never complained.”
Just two years after his first Grand Traverse, Smith quietly started pursuing international competition. He attended his first World Championship in Italy in 2017, having never done a World Cup race abroad. “I was trying to be efficient,” he said, “since I couldn’t spend that much time over there and miss school.”
At the time, it was rare for Americans to compete in World Cup skimo races. They instead focused on the biennial World Championships, “the closest thing to a team structure that we had,” Smith said.
Abroad, the contrast between the relatively green Americans and the more seasoned European racers was stark; Smith experienced the disconnect firsthand.
In 2021, Smith chose to spend the season at home because of pandemic travel restrictions. In February and March, he set course records at the Power of Four, the Gothic Mountain Tour, and the Grand Traverse while raising money for Living Journeys. He was by then established as one of the best skimo racers in the country. Abroad, however, that wasn’t the case. “Less than a year before I set those records, I was still near last place in some of the World Cup disciplines — I was mid pack in the vertical, did okay in the sprint, and was near last in the individual race,” he said.
Nevertheless, those experiences were formative. Racing the GT, Smith said, “is the direct catalyst for the best things in my life. It’s the whole reason I got my first AT set up, connected with Dynafit — the first big thing I did as an athlete.” Smith also met his wife through a GT training clinic. But racing in Europe forced Smith to train smarter, focus harder, and refine every skill.
In Crested Butte, he had a supportive community and familiar terrain; abroad, he had to navigate more technical courses and fierce competition with fewer resources. By the time the 2026 Winter Olympics approached, Smith had carved a name for himself in skimo both at home and abroad, but the Olympic disciplines, sprint and mixed relay, weren’t his natural specialty. Long, grueling courses like the Grand Traverse had shaped him as an endurance racer, not a sprinter. In the four years leading up to the Milano-Cortina Games, Smith shifted his focus dramatically. He spent as much time on the World Cup circuit as possible.
“I had to bridge the gap in any way I could to the top Europeans,” he said. “They were fitter than me, more skilled than me, and better at transitions. There were so many ways to improve that it became very motivating.”
That shift in focus also meant finding the right relay partner. Mixed relay pairs one male and one female athlete racing multiple high-speed laps that demand sharp transitions and total trust between teammates.
For Smith, it wasn’t necessarily about finding the “best” female athlete for the role, but someone who could help Team USA qualify for the Games. Smith believed he knew exactly who that was, even though she had never done a skimo race.
That athlete was Anna Gibson. Already well known in U.S. mountain endurance circles, Gibson was a former NCAA All- American runner who had transitioned successfully into elite trail and mountain racing. In addition to her aerobic engine, Gibson grew up in Jackson Hole and had something many elite skimo racers — Smith included — had to learn later in life: years spent skiing in the mountains.
“Anna’s been using an AT setup and backcountry skiing for longer than I have; it was basically her after-school activity,” Smith said. “She ticked all the boxes that no one else on the planet could.”
Smith believed what Gibson lacked in skimo-specific experience could be learned. And Gibson, in what Smith calls the “why-not era” of her athletic career, was open to the challenge.
After Smith pitched the idea in June, things moved quickly. Gibson attended U.S. team training camps in July that continued into October, learning the nuances of skimo racing, especially the lightning-fast transitions that define sprint and relay formats. In November, American athletes competed in a selection race to determine which pair would represent the U.S. at the ISMF World Cup stop in Solitude, Utah — the final Olympic qualifier. Going to the Olympics was never a guarantee.
As a new sport, ski mountaineering received just 36 athlete quotas for the 2026 Winter Games, 18 men and 18 women, making every World Cup result critical. Heading into the Solitude mixed relay, the United States trailed Canada by a single point in the Olympic Mixed Relay Ranking. The country that finished ahead would claim the final continental quota spot and advance to Milano-Cortina.
“It was such a binary circumstance,” Smith said. “We were either going to race well in Solitude and go to the Olympics, or we weren’t.”
For Smith, the stakes were enormous. Years of federation investment, personal sacrifice, and a career’s worth of preparation had narrowed to a single race on home snow. Against seasoned European teams with deep tactical experience, the duo raced with focus and precision. They executed clean transitions, powered up the climbs, and held their lines on the descents. When they crossed the line first, the United States had secured its Olympic berth — the achievement Smith had spent years chasing. For a moment, the pressure that had defined the entire season lifted.
“Once we got that,” Smith said, “we knew we could get to the Games and finish twelfth or sixth and still open a lot of doors for people that came after that, for the U.S.”
By the time Smith and Gibson arrived at the Olympics a few months later, that perspective hadn’t changed. Their fourth-place finish in the mixed relay was historic for the United States.
“I could feel the noise and energy rise when I was reaching the top of a climb, get quiet while I did my transition, then erupt again as I descended. It was really special knowing how many people were tuned in at home,” said Smith of their historic Olympic near-podium.
“I’ve put my whole life into pursuing these sports, and 99% of the time is spent by myself in the woods. So it was wild to then perform in front of so many people and introduce our sport to the world.”
Photo by Nolan Blunck
Back home in Crested Butte, Smith’s days look a little different from those of many Olympians. When he’s not training in the mountains above town, he works with the Adaptive Sports Center, helping athletes with disabilities experience the same landscapes that first hooked him on ski mountaineering. He’s been with the organization for five years and even managed to keep guiding last summer, while most of his skimo peers were training full-time.
The work keeps the sport in perspective, Smith said. “I didn’t just want to go to the Olympics. I wanted to be an Adaptive instructor and someone who contributes to their community — and go to the Olympics.”
For Smith, those identities are inseparable. The outpouring of support for Smith at Clark’s Market in February showed just how connected his Olympic journey was to the community that shaped him. He hopes his Olympic moment widens that pathway for other young athletes, as well.