Italy's Manfred Reichegger climbs his way to first place in the men's division of the North American Ski Mountaineering Championships at Crested Butte on Jan. 29. It was the third stop on the Colorado Ski Mountaineering Cup 10-race circuit. (Nathan Bilow, The Associated Press)

VAIL — For many, the onset of winter and the deep snows of February signal an annual closure of Colorado's high country. If a chairlift isn't available — and sometimes even if it is — interest in visiting a mountain peak lies dormant until flowers once again begin to bloom.

Others take a different approach.

For ski mountaineers, the mountains never close. Indeed, with the appropriate skill set and a proper amount of snow, Colorado's high country is more open than ever.

The dedicated ski mountaineer may qualify as a breed unto itself. Perhaps, in time, science will discover a gene linking the likes of Carbondale's Lou Dawson, who first tackled ski descents of all 54 Colorado fourteeners, to Aspen's Chris Davenport, who subsequently repeated the feat in a single calendar year. Maybe Kit DesLauriers, the first woman to ski Mount Everest and the Seven Summits, has similar DNA.

Whatever the link, it's evident that the gene can no longer be considered recessive.

More than 130 skiers started the Eddie Bauer Ski Mountaineering Race up, over and around Vail Mountain during the inaugural Winter Teva Mountain Games last Saturday. And while the race lacked the technical elements to put it on a par with a genuine alpine mountaineering expedition, the Elite division course did include more than 9,000 vertical feet of climbing across more than 20 miles of uphill and expert downhill skiing at elevations up to 11,500 feet.

"I really didn't know what I was getting myself into," said Kent McBride, a professional ski mountaineering guide from Jackson, Wyo., who won the men's Advanced division in his first "skimo" race in Vail. "I just did what I normally do as a guide. I have to do it quickly so I can help clients when I'm working and the weather is getting bad and we have to get down before it gets dark. It's similar, which is kind of cool, because that's what they try to base these races off of."

By most accounts, the U.S. Ski Mountaineering Association-sanctioned race at Vail was more of a leg-burning, lung-busting backcountry ski adventure than a mountaineering challenge. But that's simply the nature of the surrounding terrain.

By contrast, Crested Butte Mountain Resort hosted the inaugural North American Ski Mountaineering Championships two weeks earlier, including a 5,000-vertical-foot climb that took racers to an elevation of 12,162 feet. At one point, competitors were required to use mountaineering gear and harness themselves to 1,000 feet of fixed rope for a Class 5 ascent up an exposed ridge to the summit.

"It put mountaineering back into the sport of ski mountaineering," said Bryan Wickenhauser of Gunnison, who served as race director in Crested Butte. "Maybe not in every race, but I think there needs to be some sort of fixed-rope technical climbing in maybe 30 to 40 percent of the races for a true Colorado Ski Mountaineering Cup. I think there's a savvy race field that wants that element more and more."

With a storied mountaineering history rivaled only by its skiing tradition, Colorado would seem a natural destination to unite the two. Yet, as the historical leader in annual avalanche deaths nationwide, the state's infamously unstable backcountry snowpack is enough to keep many would-be ski mountaineers content on the controlled courses of the Colorado Ski Mountaineering Cup's expanded 10-race circuit.

The rope lines of Colorado's big mountain resorts prove challenging enough for most.

"In Crested Butte we stepped it up as far as ski mountaineering goes. We added some serious mountaineering into the race, and I think that's pretty exciting," said Janelle Smiley, winner on her home hill at Crested Butte and second behind Carbondale's Sari Anderson in Vail.

Ultimately, ski mountaineers agree, it all boils down to one thing.

"What we're looking for is a sense of adventure," Wickenhauser said after finishing a close second to Marshall Thomson of Crested Butte in Vail. "This was more of a backcountry ski race, but if you're out there and you're off-piste, you get that sense of adventure. It was awesome."