If any year demands sacrifice, this year's the one, and longtime locals are doing something about it.

They remember past Ullr Fest bonfires, where a couple dozen skis ignited in the Breckenridge flames. Jim Lamb, who moved to Summit in 1988, witnessed the January 1989 one near Lone Star Sports, which was “totally crazy,” with foam-based skis releasing cyanide gas as they burned in the huge fire. Leigh Girvin recalls “lots of drinking, lots of skis and a big molten plastic mess leftover in the parking lot.”

Rumors still persist about the last straw that caused the town to stop the traditional bonfire: someone freezing to the ground after passing out at the event.

“Lots of old timers remember it as talk,” Girvin said, but nothing was ever confirmed. The bottom line is the festivities got “a little bit out of control,” said Sandy Metzger, event director of Breckenridge Resort Chamber.

But it's back — with ceremonial sacrifice

This year, the Town of Breckenridge and the Breckenridge Resort Chamber are bringing back a tamer version of the bonfire — thanks to community demand — this time with barriers and strict regulations prohibiting ski and snowboarding burning.

But Girvin found a way to get around the rules — one that actually thrilled Metzger. Girvin wanted to build a pair of nontoxic wooden skis to throw into the fire, and Metzger had the same idea, written on her

“to do” list, but she never got around to it. So when Girvin called a few days ago to find out how she could legally participate in the time-honored pagan ritual, it was synchronistic: At 6 tonight, a KSMT DJ will introduce Ullr as he throws the 6-foot-2-inch tall skis into the bonfire.

Facebook assistance

On Facebook Jan. 6, Girvin asked if anyone had a table saw to help make wooden skis and got responses, specifically from Lamb, who has always wanted to build a functional set for himself, he said. The skis had to be nontoxic, so plywood wasn't acceptable. Lamb spent a whopping $8 on 1x4 pine.

“The minute I started gluing these things together, it started to snow, so I think we're on to something,” he said, referring to the project he started Saturday.

He had built kayak paddles before and bent them slightly over boiling water, but when he tried the same method — taking the long boards and boiling the ends for 20 minutes over his stove (covering the exposed end with tinfoil, while his wife looked at him like he was crazy) — he didn't have luck curving the tips of the skis. After an additional 20 minutes, he gave up and called his friend, Jason Rodon, a woodworker who builds furniture and cabinets.

Rodon used his bandsaw to fashion the curved tip of the ski. As Rodon says: “It was an honor to be involved to create something that will just be destroyed (tonight),” and he's sincere: as a cook and yoga teacher, he spends his life creating body poses and food that dissolve almost immediately into other forms, so he's used to the “theme of creation of dissolution.”

Girvin believes in the ritual aspect of the bonfire.

“It's a way of making a prayer,” she said, “asking the powers that be to answer our prayers. I believe in the intention of ritual.”

And, as Lamb points out, the ceremonial skis are: “a way to appease the great god of Ullr without screwing up our air quality.”