Sno Endurance Trials

The Snow Endurance Trials (SnoEnd) is a five-member team sport comprising various athletic contests [trials] based around the activities of running, skimming, and swimming, on the surface in packed snow and glacier waters. The annual Sno End is the only team sporting event that does not take place at the Vosk Glacial Fairgrounds.

The first trial involves an 1800 meter run across thick pack snow, with a dangerous route over the uneven planes of a glacier’s active ice-lobe. The runner finishes her trek with a rolling dive into a glacial lake. One Marix is designated to lead her team in this portion of the competition. Her performance is judged based on her speed, her running jump, ball-up, roll and unfurl, and her recollect as she traverses the course path.

The second trial involves a Marix chosen from her team to descend the slope of a glacier while standing barefoot on a 2-meter board called a skim. The rider of the skim traverses the glacier at its accumulation zone then slides over its ablation until it reaches she reaches its terminus. The rider is then launched over the glacier melt-water, coming down and gliding over it, until reaching the end of the line. Riders of the skim are judged on their slope style, and drift control once free of the ice. They’re also judged on the distance they can ‘skim’ their boards down the glacier water, before losing momentum.

The third trial involves the remaining three members of the team engaging in an underwater swimming relay. The relay takes place in one of the many winding melt-water rivers of the far western portion of the Prime Ramax. The first match of the third trial comprises of a swimmer stroking her way through the calm shallows of the glacial lake. At the mouth of the englacial channel, her teammate pulls her from the water and then dives in. As the second swimmer, she must swim the channel, then roll with the rapids of the river before being retrieved by the third team member, at the smaller lake of a moulin-tributary. The third member enters the water; her final lap is in the glacier (viewed by spectators on monitors) along the melt-water subchannel. Her course ends when she slides out of the subglacial channel, through a hole in the glacier. If she is the first to emerge, her team wins.

There are four teams:

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