UAF senior Kendall Kramer, UAA senior Peter Hinds win Sonot Kkaazoot races

“It was really, really cool,” Kramer said of winning NCAA gold in Hanover, New Hampshire on Saturday, March 8. “Everyone was really proud. It was awesome to celebrate with everybody. It was the perfect way to end it, so that was an epic experience.”

As for Saturday’s race, the six-time cross country ski All-American and three-time cross country running All-American was simply in search of one last hard effort and aimed to keep pace with the UAF and UAA men who were racing the 50km distance.

Hanging on for 25 kilometers was enough for Kramer to defeat all other men and women in the 30km by a wide margin and defend her 2024 Sonot Kkaazoot title.

“It was really fast out there,” Kramer said of the course at Birch Hill. “You can tell just by how far you glide on some parts of the course as opposed to a lot of the year when it’s so slow out here. So that was really a treat. It was fun racing with the boys. I really tried to keep up; they’re going very fast.”

Kramer completed the race in an hour, 27 minutes and 10 seconds, two minutes and 29 seconds faster than she skied en route to winning the 2024 Sonot Kkaazoot 30km. Next year, Kramer, who is out of NCAA eligibility, will be training with the Alaska Pacific University (APU) Nordic Ski Center group in Anchorage.

Max Kaufman finished as the 30km runner-up in 1:40:20. Anna Engel of APU placed third, while West Valley sophomore Reid Merrill finished fourth for the second year in a row and UAA freshman Dashe McCabe rounded out the top five.

UAA senior Peter Hinds won the 50-kilometer race by six tenths of a second over sophomore Seawolf teammate Corbin Carpenter, as both completed the race in two hours, 18 minutes and 27 seconds. Hinds was the top non-Nanook in the 50km last year, finishing fourth in 2:18:24.

This year, Hinds made a move with about two kilometers remaining to separate himself from all the other collegians who were also using the Sonot Kkaazoot as their final race of the season, including five men who finished the race within a minute of him.

“Maybe 2k to go, I just started giving it my all and then I distanced the group coming into the stadium for the first little bit and they caught me again and I was like ‘oh man, it could be all over,’” Hinds said. “Then at the end, it’s just an all-out slugfest sprinting to the finish, so I barely beat Corbin today, but he was on my heels.”

Hinds described the race as “really chill for about 30km, and then things started picking up.” This was his fifth 50km race since that distance (equivalent to 31 miles) is not offered at the collegiate level. He’s raced the Tour of Anchorage a couple of times, the Oosik Classic and now the Sonot Kkaazoot for the second year in a row.

“We drive up for it every year because it’s so fun,” Hinds said. “And it’s like the best skiing in Alaska right now.”

UAF sophomore Ben Dohlby finished a close third in 2:18:30, while UAA sophomore Parke Chapin was fourth in 2:18:32.

UAF junior Philipp Moosmayer and freshman Blake Hanley placed fifth and sixth, respectively. Service High School junior Elias Oswald set the pace for the first half of his first 50km before falling back to a still-strong seventh place in 2:21:11.

“I think all the boys are approaching it in a pretty fun way,” Kramer said. “I think they’re going harder than they expected today.”

UAF freshmen Matyas Pavek and Gabriele Rigaudo placed eighth and 11th, respectively. Lathrop senior Wells Wappett placed ninth.

UAA senior Astrid Stav was the top women’s 50km finisher, placing 19th in 2:41:51.

Micah Rozell defended his title in the 10km, narrowly defeating Blair Merrill, who was also in the 14-15-year-old boys group. Rozell finished the race in 32:03, while Merrill was five seconds back in 32:08. Rozell was almost two minutes faster than his 2024 winning time of 33:59.

Kenny Mullins, who was in the 12-13-year-old boys group, placed third in 33:18. Ellie Burnett, in the 14-15-year-old girls group, was the top female finisher in the 10km. She placed eighth in 36:22.

The Sonot Kkaazoot — pronounced “SAW NOT” for “springtime” and “kah-ZOOT” meaning “to slide your feet across the snow” in Athabaskan — is held annually on the weekend of the spring equinox. Beginning in 2022, the race start and finish were moved from the Chena River to Birch Hill.