Ski to Sea winner makes it four in a row for Bellingham’s ‘Olympics’
Birch Equipment won the 52nd annual Ski to Sea race Sunday, as the team’s sea kayaker jumped out of his boat and jogged up the beach in Fairhaven to ring the bell for the fourth year in a row.
Team captain Jeff Hilburn yanked the rope attached to the winner’s bell and hugged one of his teammates as spectators lining the finish line clapped and cheered. He bent over to catch his breath, too exhausted to say more than a word or two at first.
Teammates popped a champagne cork and sprayed him with bubbly.
“It feels great. It’s something that we knew was there (but) I didn’t think it was attainable. I felt sure that someone — or a couple people — would put together a team and try to take us down. Boomer’s had some new guys this year and they had a really fast team, but we held on,” Hilburn told The Herald at the finish line.
Birch’s team finished the 93-mile multi-sport relay race — which goes from the Mt. Baker Ski Area to Marine Park — in just under six hours. Boomer’s Drive-In was less than 4 minutes behind to grab second place.
After its three-peat in 2024, Birch was tied with Boomer’s for most consecutive wins. Boomer’s won from 2017-2019.
Race officials shortened the 5-mile sea kayaking course to about 3 miles Sunday because of a southwest wind of about 15 mph. Skies were overcast with hazy sun and temperatures around 60 degrees.
An extreme low of minus 2 feet earlier in the morning meant that the early finishers had to run farther up the beach to ring the bell.
Nearly 500 teams and more than 3,800 participants registered this year for the Ski to Sea, which requires a team of eight to compete on a course that crosses Whatcom County and features the sports of cross-country skiing, downhill skiing or snowboarding, running, road biking, canoeing, cyclocross riding and sea kayaking.
The race dates to 1973, taking its inspiration from the 1911 Mount Baker Marathon.
Several thousand people were at the finish line by early afternoon, where businesses, nonprofits and others staffed informational booths. Concessions offered beer, coffee, gyros, pizza and other foods.
Dolan Dillion of Eureka, Calif., stumbled on the festivities by accident while on a road trip.
“It’s awesome! We were just googling the race and figuring out the legs, watching You Tube videos. I kinda want to try it,” he told The Herald.
Former Ski to Sea competitor Tammy Bennett was at the waterfront with several friends, waiting to cheer her son, a sea kayaker.
“It’s exciting! It’s Bellingham’s Olympics. We used to do it together for years, but now we’re watching my kid,” Bennett said.
This story was originally published May 25, 2025 at 5:11 PM.
