Summit For Life...

Winter kicked in to gear with some new snow and the largest early winter season event “The Astellas Aspen Summit for Life” race and fundraiser December 2 and 3rd. The event is a fundraiser that raises awareness for organ and tissue donation and is organized and put together by the Chris Klug Foundation and its many sponsors and volunteers. Friday night kicked off with a dinner and party at the Aspen Cooking School and then on a cold but beautiful Saturday evening 300+ racers donned their spikes, skins and snowshoes and began the trek from the base of Aspen to the Summit's Sun Deck ascending a little more than 3,200 vertical feet. Once at the Summit, participants joined another 100 attendees who rode the Silver Queen up and thus the party began with an amazing Lasagna dinner courtesy of The Little Nell, and a live band who drove and performed gratis from Breckenridge. The bar had drinks flowing most of the evening and the hot chocolate machine was running overtime to keep everybody warm. If you got to the photo booth in the back, courtesy of SocialLight Photo, you can still check out the fun pictures online. Over $100,000 was raised for the Foundation and while there were winners of the race that night, everybody was a winner who participated, volunteered, sponsored and contributed to this very special event. Kudos goes to the top fundraising team “Pandamonium” which raised over $3,500, while individuals Jerry Wenner and Lilly Justice each fundraised identical amounts of $3,460. On the men’s side John Gaston took first place honors with a record and amazing time of 42.53, second place went to Mike Kloser with a time of 49.32 and local Tyler Newton placed third in 52.48. On the women’s side the first place finisher was Lyndsay Meyer who broke one hour with a time of 59.37, Second place went to Jennifer Mendez in 1:00:57 while third place was wrapped up by Kim Master in 1:02:07. Plans are already underway for next year’s exciting event.