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<p>It was inevitable Meredith Edwards would end up on skis. The sport was embedded in her family.</p><p>The day came much sooner than anticipated.</p><p>&#8220;I must have been about 3,&#8221; Edwards said. &#8220;We were on a family trip up in Vermont. My dad and mom put me in daycare and thought, &#8216;Oh, she&#8217;ll be fine for the day.&#8217; I ended up causing such a fuss, I got kicked out of the daycare. My parents weren&#8217;t very happy about it. My dad said, &#8216;Well, I guess she&#8217;s going to learn how to ski.&#8217;&#8221;</p><p>Thus began the ski career of the 2003 Lake-Lehman graduate that has led to one of the most challenging sports in the world &#8211; ski mountaineering. Edwards is a member of the US Ski Mountaineering team and has participated in grueling events in the United States and Europe.</p><p>&#8220;She&#8217;s just an athletic kid,&#8221; said Ralph Edwards, Meredith&#8217;s father. &#8220;She was always on the move. Very active, very athletic. She started playing soccer when she was really young. She played field hockey. She started that in junior high and was an outstanding field hockey player. She was all-state her senior year.&#8221;</p><p>Ski mountaineering encompasses four different skills. There is the traditional downhill skiing, but there is also uphill skiing plus hiking and climbing.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s like a true testament of skiing,&#8221; said Edwards. &#8220;It&#8217;s all-around general skiing. You have to be a great skier on the downhill, but you also have to be in really good shape to go uphill. And you have to be confident on some of the stuff you&#8217;re climbing. It really tests the person on how well rounded they are as a skier on a mountain.&#8221;</p><p>Skiers use skins &#8211; carpet-like strips, according to Edwards &#8211; to ski uphill. The skins are removed for the downhill portions of the races. Those downhill runs often include skiing through narrow, jagged rock cuts.</p><p>In between, there&#8217;s hiking, where the skis are strapped to a backpack, and climbing.</p><p>&#8220;In some races, we&#8217;re required to wear harnesses and we&#8217;re roped in on a ridge and are scaling over some rocks,&#8221; Edwards said.</p><p>Edwards won the Cowbar Backcountry Skimo Race in January in Provo, Utah, in 2:34.37. She shaved nearly 10 minutes off her winning time in 2015 and finished fifth overall. She also had impressive showings in last year&#8217;s World Cup, finishing fifth in the sprint relay, 11th in the team race, 25th in the vertical race and 30th in the individual race.</p><p>The trek from the Back Mountain to her current home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, was about as challenging as ski mountaineering.</p><p>Ralph Edwards is a ski instructor, so it helped expedite Meredith&#8217;s learning curve. She was a member of the Jack Frost/Big Boulder USSA Junior Race Team through her senior year at Lake-Lehman.</p><p>Field hockey, though, was the sport that landed Edwards at the University of Louisvlle. She played field hockey there as well as participated in cross country and track.</p><p>Those sports weren&#8217;t enough to keep her from thinking about the slopes, though.</p><p>&#8220;I developed a passion for skiing at a young age because it was what to expect every winter,&#8221; Edwards said. &#8220;When I went to college, I didn&#8217;t think I was going to miss it. But my first semester away it came time for December and I was like, &#8216;Oh, no, I&#8217;m not going to ski.&#8217; And that was really weird for me.&#8221;</p><p>Edwards was able to get a little skiing in at Paoli Peaks in Ohio, but remembered reading about Jackson Hole as a teenager in a ski magazine. She eventually coaxed her dad to take her on a ski trip there.</p><p>&#8220;When I came out - it must have been 2005 - we came on a spring trip to go skiing,&#8221; Edwards said. &#8220;I just fell in love with the place. The end of that spring semester, I moved to Jackson and got a job working for a whitewater rafting company.</p><p>&#8220;I pretty much knew when I graduated from college in &#8216;07 that I was going to move to Jackson, and that&#8217;s what I did.&#8221;</p><p>Edwards assimilated into the ski community where a few people suggested she try ski mountaineering because of her running background. Hesitant at first, she eventually followed up on the idea.</p><p>&#8220;It took me a couple years to actually get enough courage to do a race,&#8221; Edwards said. &#8220;But I started doing it and got pretty good at it pretty fast.&#8221;</p><p>She made the US team in 2013 and competed in the World Championships. She moved to Europe in 2014 and raced in the World Cup. She moved back to the states last year, qualified again for the US squad and went back to Europe for the World Championships.</p><p>&#8220;And that&#8217;s where I&#8217;m at now,&#8221; Edwards said.</p><p>Well, sort of. Edwards is also involved in two other sports which require incredible endurance &#8211; ultra marathon running and sky running. Ultra marathons usually range from 50-100 kilometers (31-62 miles). Sky running requires steep uphill and downhill running. She ran a 100k last year at the Ultra Trail Mount Blanc, a race that starts in Italy, goes through Switzerland and ends in France.</p><p>&#8220;This year I&#8217;m going back to do a 120k,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It&#8217;s the other half of the loop around the Mount Blanc with 25,000 feet of climbing. So I have my work cut out for me.&#8221;</p><p>Oh, yeah, work. While Edwards has sponsorship from six sports or nutrition companies, she also holds a full-time job. She works at C Bar V Ranch, a state facility for special needs children and teenagers. Her schedule allows her to train in the mornings &#8211; either skiing, running or in the gym. Her only day off from training is Sunday when she works a 14-hour shift at C Bar V Ranch.</p><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a good balance for myself,&#8221; Edwards said. &#8220;It&#8217;s a bit of a difficult job, but it&#8217;s very satisfying and I think that&#8217;s very important when outside of work I pursue a very selfish endeavor.</p><p>&#8220;It all kind of works out.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Lake-Lehman graduate Meredith Edwards, a member of the US Ski Mountaineering team, competes in the World Championship Sprints in 2013. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_image5-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Lake-Lehman graduate Meredith Edwards, a member of the US Ski Mountaineering team, competes in the World Championship Sprints in 2013. </caption0><photoCredit0>Mark Smiley photo </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_image2a-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Lake-Lehman graduate Meredith Edwards, a member of the US Ski Mountaineering team, trains in the Teton Mountains in Wyoming. Besides ski mountaineering, Edwards also competes in ultra marathons that can range from 60-100 kilometers. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_image2a-1.jpg</photo1><caption1>Lake-Lehman graduate Meredith Edwards, a member of the US Ski Mountaineering team, trains in the Teton Mountains in Wyoming. Besides ski mountaineering, Edwards also competes in ultra marathons that can range from 60-100 kilometers. </caption1><photoCredit1>Mark Smiley photo </photoCredit1></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_image9-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Lake-Lehman graduate Meredith Edwards skis down hill at Middle Teton, Wyoming. Edwards is a member of the US Ski Mountaineering team. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo2>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_image9-1.jpg</photo2><caption2>Lake-Lehman graduate Meredith Edwards skis down hill at Middle Teton, Wyoming. Edwards is a member of the US Ski Mountaineering team. </caption2><photoCredit2>Owen Leper photo Owen Leper photo </photoCredit2></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_image2-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Lake-Lehman gradutes Meredith Edwards, a member of the US Ski Mountaineering team, races past spectators at the World Championships vertical race. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo3>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_image2-1.jpg</photo3><caption3>Lake-Lehman gradutes Meredith Edwards, a member of the US Ski Mountaineering team, races past spectators at the World Championships vertical race. </caption3><photoCredit3>Mckenna Douglas photo </photoCredit3></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_null-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Meredith Edwards was an all-state field hockey player at Lake-Lehman and scored a goal in the Black Knights&#8217; Class 2A state championship victory in 2002. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo4>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_null-1.jpg</photo4><caption4>Meredith Edwards was an all-state field hockey player at Lake-Lehman and scored a goal in the Black Knights&#8217; Class 2A state championship victory in 2002. </caption4><photoCredit4>Fred Adams | Times Leader file photo </photoCredit4></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_image8-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Sarah Cookler, left, Meredith Edwards, center, and Jessica Young took fifth place in the Sprint Relay Team event at the World Championships. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo5>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/web1_image8-1.jpg</photo5><caption5>Sarah Cookler, left, Meredith Edwards, center, and Jessica Young took fifth place in the Sprint Relay Team event at the World Championships. </caption5><photoCredit5>Submitted photo </photoCredit5></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By John Erzar</p><p>jerzar@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach John Erzar at 570-991-6394 or on Twitter @TLJohnErzar</p></shirttailMeta></div>

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Lake-Lehman graduate Meredith Edwards makes her mark in grueling sport of ski mountaineering