"Abject terror" isn't a phrase you'd readily associate with sports, but Sierra Shafer's use of it becomes increasingly understandable as you make way through her piece for Outside. In it, she recounts her first go at skiing the Mürren Inferno—the world's oldest, longest, and most challenging downhill ski race. January marked the 79th time it's been held in Mürren, Switzerland, on the slopes of the 9,744-foot Schilthorn. Shafer initially gives hints about the dread many of the 1,850 skiers who participate feel: She mentions a warning not to come to the race hungover, her decision to buy helicopter insurance should she need to be evacuated from the mountain, and the town's night-prior tradition of burning an effigy of the devil at the stake to keep bad luck at bay.
She jokingly asked the friend who invited her, a former racer, if she'd survive the race. (Shafer is a life-longer skier and editor of Ski, but not a racer). "But I was also seriously wondering about the risks of skiing alongside hundreds of other racers for 1,900 vertical feet—at top speed, down an icy course lined by sheer drop-offs," she writes. That's understandable. This 2022 report on the race describes a very real toll: "four shoulder fractures, two broken knees, some cracked ribs and a head injury that required an air ambulance to the nearest hospital." Shafer begins by restraining herself from reaching her personal top speed of 40mph. "I hold on and just try to breathe," she writes. "I feel the urge to go faster, but when I see the drop-offs along the course's edge—no netting—I hold steady." (Read the full piece to see how she does.)
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