The 12th annual Defiance Challenge at Sunlight Mountain Resort took place over the weekend, and for the second time in five years, Glenwood Springs High School students took home the gold medal to hang on their mantel. 

GSHS students Eric Crittenden-LaRoche and Darden Young were crowned as the 2025 Defiance Challenge champions after skiing down Sunlight’s terrain 46 times in 10 hours on Friday.

“I was so proud of both of us,” LaRoche said. “Darden and I kept saying that we go until we win or get hurt. I think having him by my side was my biggest motivation, because I knew if I gave up, I wasn’t just letting myself down, but my partner as well.”

Every year, skiers and snowboarders in the Roaring Fork Valley flock to Sunlight Mountain to participate in a 10-hour full day ski race. Anybody 6 years and older is welcome to participate in the ultimate endurance challenge. Starting at 7:15 a.m., skiers soak up every ounce of daylight and see how many times they can lap the resort. 

“I was proud of myself, not necessarily for winning, but for pushing myself so hard,” Young said. “We both knew if one of us stopped, the other one would be disappointed, so that definitely helped us keep pushing.”

Crittenden-LaRoche and Young’s 46 runs fall just three laps shy of the all time record, set by former GSHS students Nathan Grosscup and Aiden Corcoran in 2020. 

“We originally set out to beat the record but 6 inches of fresh powder didn’t help in that regard at all,” Young joked. 

During the planning stages of the challenge, organizers designed a course utilizing the Primo and Segundo lifts to maximize the number of runs participants could complete within a 10-hour window. They divided the mountain into four sections, assigning 10 laps per section, which granted racers access to 40 of the mountain’s 75 trails. More than a dozen of these trails are located on the mountain’s eastern face—home to its steepest terrain, including many black and double black diamond runs. The section is where the challenge earned its name.

“The only strategy we had was to get to the bottom and get on the lift as fast as possible,” Young said. 

Part of the Defiance Challenge’s quirk is having to reset on the slow, but steady, Primo and Segundo lifts. The 12-minute ride up Primo gives riders a brief chance to catch their breaths and rest their legs. The rest of the time, riders are on the slopes doing what they can to take home first place.

“We decided to sign up three days before the challenge,” Crittenden-La Roche admitted. “We decided to sign up because we love to push each other to the limit, so we signed up with no training or knowledge of what we were signing up for.”

The inaugural Defiance Challenge came in 2012 when the Sunlight Ski Patrol was looking for a way to raise more funds for their nonprofit organization. What started as a flattering imitation of the “Enduro” challenge at Arapahoe Basin has turned into the nonprofit’s largest fundraiser, according to their website. 2013 was the first year that Sunlight donated half the proceeds to assist families of fallen or injured ski patrollers across the region.

“Ski patrollers are a large extended family. It’s a great way to honor ski patrollers who have dedicated all or a portion of their lives to helping others. The least we can do is contribute to their families and honor their memory and legacy as patrollers,” Defiance Challenge co-founder Cindy Henderson says on their website.

Defiance is the name of a steep run on the eastern face of Sunlight. It was named for the infamous former name of Glenwood Springs when the town was a notorious spot for gunslingers.  

Now, nearly two centuries later, the name that once signified an area full of gamblers and saloons perks the ears of skiers on the Western Slope, Young and Crittenden-LaRoche included. 

“We put skis on him as soon as he was walking,” Doreen Ohlsen, Young’s mother said. “He absolutely hated it, but we kept at it and now skis are basically an extension of his body.”

Reflecting on the weekend, Young said it was just another day, doing what he loves with his friends by his side.

“I just love getting out on the slopes so much because its such a good way to get outside,” Young said. “Messing around with my friends on the mountain is one of my favorite things to do.”