The weather could only be described as downright horrid.

But amid the howling winds, wet, heavy snow and difficult terrain, the inaugural Mountain Trails Foundation Round Valley Roundup could only be described as an overall success.

Cross-country skiers from the Western United States gathered Saturday morning in the Round Valley area to participate in a 40K, 20K or 5K race. Hosting Utah’s only 40K race, Mountain Trails saw 285 skiers take to the skate-only tracks.

Kurt Wolf of McCall, Idaho, had no affiliation to any team. He simply jumped in with the Idaho Nordic Team as the team headed south to Park City.

“They had a spot in the van,” he said.

A long-distance runner in college, Wolf took up cross-country skiing six years ago. On Saturday morning, Wolf was the leader of the pack racing in the men’s 21-to-30 division, he finished first overall in the 40K race with a total time of 2:16:41.

“He blistered it,” said Charlie Sturgis, executive director of Mountain Trails. “He’s tough as nails.”

At one point, Sturgis said, he saw Wolf catching up to the track-setting snowmobile.

“It was great,” Wolf said. “It felt good.”

With near-zero visibility at times, many racers dropped out due to weather conditions.

Roxanne Toly, a native of Park City, took first place in the women’s 40K with a time of 2:35:06 racing in the 41-to-50 division. She said that anyone racing with sunglasses had a difficult time keeping pace.

“When you hit the wind, you couldn’t see,” Toly said. “That was harsh.”

Toly said although she was physically drained, she prefers longer races. A former member of the U.S. Ski Team, Toly has been cross-country skiing for 20 years now.

“I had to dig a little deep today,” she said. “I really wanted to slow down at one point and if had slowed down, I wouldn’t have been able to stay with the guys in front of me.”

Following the race, participants were invited to a post-race luncheon in the barn at the National Ability Center where a drawing took place and awards for the top-three finishers in each category were handed out.

Sturgis had hoped for about 400 racers, but will gladly take the turn out of 285.

“For the inaugural race, yeah, brutal weather,” Sturgis said. “People were super psyched about the course. That’s the thing that’s really fun.

“We had a great turnout.”

He was especially impressed with the 40K racers who had to endure not one, but two laps of difficult conditions.

“The reality is that was just going to be really un-fun,” Sturgis said. “It’s one thing to have to endure the slog; it’s another thing to set yourself up to do it twice.”

Toly said she had lost a 10K race the previous week to Inge Travis, who finished first Saturday in the women’s 31-to-40 40K division, and that the length of the race lead to a tight finish.

“It was actually a pretty close race,” she said. “I think it was a matter of having good skis, and being able to ski behind some people at times.”

Sturgis said there is so much that goes into organizing a race of this magnitude, and while he had zero control over the weather, he said the inaugural event was an achievement and he is excited looking forward.

“There’s so much that go into it,” he said. “You really find all the little subtleties going on.”

He added: “Despite the weather, the key in these types of races is good course management.”

A close friend of Sturgis’ approached him after the 40K and told him the race was the toughest thing he’d ever done but enjoyed every minute of it.

Toly was a little more circumspect saying, “This race hurt my legs more than I had thought.”