Meet “Racer Tom,” the 63-Year-Old Ski Resort Folk HeroSnowbasin is a ski mountain of many charms: wide open bowls, challenging hike-to steeps, abundant tree skiing and gleaming lodges. Almost none of that matters to Thomas Hart, despite the fact that he skied at Snowbasin practically every day this season. That’s because Hart, known across the Utah resort as “Racer Tom,” arrived at the mountain every morning with a singular mission: to ski as many vertical feet as possible. On April 8, he set what he says is the Guinness World Record for the most vertical feet skied in a single season: more than seven million (though the final tally has yet to be counted or certified by the organization). Hart, a 63-year-old retired commercial real estate broker who lives in North Ogden, tracks his vertical feet with the Ikon Pass and Ski Tracks apps, and separately in a spreadsheet that he maintains. InsideHook caught up with Hart in early May as he was padding his new record at Snowbird, another mountain resort nearby, which will remain open through Memorial Day. |