KEYSTONE — Summit High School rising senior Paul Hans excelled at Saturday’s Discrete Cirque Series trail run up and down Arapahoe Basin Ski Area a couple of days before varsity practice began this week.

The 17-year-old Breckenridge resident finished second in the men’s expert 19-and-under division with a time of 1 hour, 5 minutes and 5.39 seconds on the 6.8-mile, 1,890-foot elevation gain course.

Beginning at 10 a.m., runners ascended Arapahoe Basin’s front side via switchbacks on the ski area’s eastern boundary below tree line. Above tree line, runners ascended past Black Mountain Lodge and switchbacked underneath the Lenawee lift before reaching the top of the ski area at Snow Plume Refuge. Runners then continued up to the summit of Little Lenawee Peak before descending the mountain’s switchbacks, many of them doing so in a torrential downpour.

Hans, a cross-country runner and an elite ski mountaineer, said he’s never raced in a competition with rain as heavy as it was Saturday. The race, which capped a summer of training with the Summit Endurance Academy, provided a challenge in terms of pacing for Hans. Having never run this format of race before — something more similar to a ski mountaineering sprint than a cross-country run — Hans said he struggled over the first two miles figuring out the best pace for himself. Once above tree line, though, he dialed in his running rhythm.

“It definitely felt like the biggest running race I’ve done,” Hans said. “There’s the money in the Cirque Series, then there was the whole vendor village, which I never saw for a running race. I don’t know how many people ended up doing it, but there were more people than at any of the trail races I usually race. It definitely felt more big and professional.”

Hans said he doesn’t mind it much when rain begins after a race has commenced, which was the case Saturday. The rain really didn’t pick up, he said, until he summited Little Lenawee Peak and began the descent. Hans compared the conditions, in terms of effect on a race, to a cold or snow-socked ski mountaineering race. 

“It was cool, though,” Hans said. “I thought it was cool conditions for the style of race it was, with the fog and stuff on the mountains. It was kind of gnarly coming down when it really started to pour. But, yeah, up above tree line, it wasn’t too bad. Until I kind of got below tree line was when it really started raining. The last 15 minutes was pretty rough, but it was fun.”

Once he successfully traversed some slick walkways and bridges down near the base area, Hans crossed the finish line ready to turn his focus to this autumn’s cross-country season and eventually ski mountaineering. Hans said he thinks the Summit Tigers boys cross-country team will be super fast this year considering the proven veteran talent the team has returning, including several fellow ski mountaineering athletes.

Individually, Hans said he’d like to break 17 minutes in the 5-kilometer distance this season, which would be a huge improvement on his personal record of 19:20 last season.

As for ski mountaineering, Hans is focused on training hard for Team USA’s Youth Olympics qualifying process. Ski mountaineering will debut at the Youth Olympics in Laussane, Switzerland, in January, and the qualifying timeline will rev up come November.

Despite a lingering shoulder injury, Hans is ready for it, as he was one of several locals who competed for Team USA at last winter’s International Ski Mountaineering Federation World Championships in Villars sur-Ollon, Switzerland.

“Some people might be better at downhill skiing,” Hans said, “whereas, myself, I think I’m a pretty strong downhill skier, and maybe I’m not as strong endurance-wise as some of the other guys. So that’s definitely one of my goals. And other than that, I just want to race a lot and get more experience.”