- Utah skier "Racer Tom" Hart has skied more than 11.4 million vertical feet this season.
- Hart broke his own Guinness World Record for vertical distance skied in a year.
- More skiing might be in the offing in Chile where winter is just getting started.
Last we heard from Thomas Hart, aka “Racer Tom,” he was hurtling down snow-covered mountains in an attempt to break his own world record for most vertical distance skied in a year.
Mission accomplished. And then some.
After Snowbasin Resort, his home mountain in northern Utah, closed April 13, Hart headed to Mammoth Mountain in California, which stayed open until June 15, to pursue the record.
As of Monday, he had skied 208 days in the 2024-25 season, totaling more than 11.4 million vertical feet, shattering his previous record and far exceeding his goal for the year. (Vertical feet is measured as the difference from the top elevation to the bottom elevation.) He has taken more than 6,100 rides on a ski lift.
“It’s like this awesome dream that hasn’t ended,” Hart said by phone after pulling over in a Mammoth parking lot on his drive back to Utah. “It just feels fantastic.”
Going for 10 million
Hart, 64, owns the Guinness World Record for most vertical distance skied in a year, an astounding 8,513,340 feet in 2023-24. His goal this year was 10 million.
“I’m not leaving anything on the table this season,” he told me in April as we rode the Needles Gondola at Snowbasin. “Last year, I felt like I left something on the table.”
Well, there’s nothing on the table now. He not only blew past 10 million but 11 million, too, during his month at Mammoth, nearly the last resort to close this year. (Timberline Lodge in Oregon remains open.)
Ikon Pass and Mammoth Mountain celebrated Hart hitting the 10 million mark on social media. It drew more than 7,100 likes and nearly 200 comments.
“It’s a dream come true. It’s a number that I didn’t think was possible but anything is possible. I’m living proof that encouragement by other people really works,” he said an Instagram video.
Many of the comments offered encouragement and congratulations, though there were a few naysayers.
“People act like I’m not having fun and it couldn’t be further from reality because it’s just so much fun,” he said, adding he and other big vertical skiers on the mountain are having the time of their life. “We all love to ski and it’s fun for us to do it all day, every day.”
In fact, one of his skiing pals at Mammoth, Mark Royerre, handed out “Fun Meter” buttons to others on the mountain. The arrow on his and Hart’s always pointed to “max.”
There’s snow in Chile
Hart, a retired commercial real estate broker, skis every day, from first chair to last chair with little, if any, break. He has only missed three days this season — two with an eye problem last December and one driving to California. At Mammoth, he made about 60 runs a day. He typically packs hard-boiled eggs and a peanut-butter-and-honey sandwich to eat on the lift. He waxes his skis almost nightly. He’s in bed before 9 p.m. and up at 4 a.m, 5 if he sleeps in.
He started chasing the record in Colorado last fall before Utah resorts opened. The majority of his days were spent at Snowbasin, a 22-mile drive from his home in North Ogden.
Like he told me back in April, “Paul McCartney did not envision someone like me when he wrote the song ‘When I’m Sixty Four.’”
To be precise, Hart has now skied 11,419,961 vertical feet. That’s about 2,163 miles. It’s the equivalent of 6,431 One World Trade Centers stacked end to end or 393 Mount Everests from summit to base. He plans to submit his total, which he tracks publicly on the Ikon Pass app, to Guinness next week.
But he might not be done.
Hart and the big vertical skiers who shared a condo in California became fast friends. They are now his “Mammoth family.” They’re considering a trip in August to Chile where winter is just getting started.
