Posted by: Shauna Farnell
The recognizable redhead will return to Vail to compete in his first races post-Olympics
Cam Smith is trying to get used to life as a low-key celebrity. While some Olympic athletes may pass under the radar when out in public, Smith, with his quick smile, bright red hair and beard is easy to spot. An unassuming guy who has always been passionate about athletic endeavors, he is still reeling from his experience as one of just two American ski mountaineering athletes competing in the sport’s debut at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Now he has traded out his featherweight skis for running shoes and is getting ready to return to Vail to compete in the GoPro Mountain Games.
“For the most part, being a pretty to-myself person, to now be known and recognized at the grocery story is kind of an event,” Smith says.
Growing up in Rockford, Ill., Smith attended Western Colorado University in Gunnison, where his love for the outdoors took a turn toward high-elevation pursuits, including ski mountaineering. His introduction to skimo racing was in 2014, competing in the grueling, 40-mile, overnight Grand Traverse race from Crested Butte to Aspen with his older sister. Finishing in the back of the pack to start, Smith was determined to improve. By 2021, he set the Grand Traverse course record (6 hours, 6 minutes and 24 seconds) and steadily etched his way onto the map of skimo’s global elite.
Now famous from competing on the world’s biggest stage last February, when he and U.S. teammate Anna Gibson finished fourth in the Olympic mixed relay event, Smith keeps his training level high in the summer, mostly in the form of running up mountains.
Speeding up green slopes
“I’ve been an athlete most of my life, building up to this very thing,” he says. “I wanted to go to the Olympics for track or some kind of running. I was nowhere near good enough. I had to pivot and make the dream come true anyway.”
Smith, 30, is more than decent at running. From the time he competed in high school track and cross-country, claiming he was “a good but not great runner,” the redhead has steadily built his repertoire. He won the 2025 Run the Rut 28K in Montana, and he = took 11th in the Vertical Uphill race in the Mountain Running World Championships in Spain last September, helping the U.S. men’s team claim a bronze medal.
He is also no stranger to success at the GoPro Mountain Games. He landed fourth in the 2025 adidas TERREX 10K Spring Runoff. But where Cam truly shines is in the infamously unhinged adidas TERREX Pepi’s Face-Off, which he won in 2024 and was runner up in last year. Cam says it is probably the closest summertime iteration of Olympic Skimo.
“The things that translate from running to Skimo are running fast and running uphill,” Smith says. “If you can run at high pace over mountainous terrain, you’re going way faster than you would with skis on your feet. In Pepi’s, you’re going so steep, it becomes a strength demand. I like to use poles. It’s the same movement as boot packing or skinning up the hill. It’s a lot steeper than some of our courses. That’s the way to get ready for Skimo – run fast and run uphill.”
Teaching adaptive athletes
When not competing, Smith works as an instructor at Crested Butte’s Adaptive Sports Center. Like almost everywhere he’s gone since the Olympics, he’s discovered new-found fame at his day job.
After qualifying for the Games earlier in the winter, he had taught a lesson to a family that returned this spring with fresh recognition of their instructor.
“The family didn’t pick up on it the first time. I remember walking past a stand of newspapers that had me on the front page. They paraded right past it. We saw them again in March. They thought it was so exciting,” he says. “It was a good anecdote, like I’m a regular instructor, a relatable person, you can have any old day, who is also an Olympian.”
Takeaways from the big stage
Although the sudden fame can be a little jarring, Smith is exuberant when reflecting on his Olympic experience.
“It really did exceed max expectations,” he says. “It was all I dreamt of and more, especially to have so many people be part of it. It really energizes people and involves people all over the country and world… People I went to high school with, my mom’s girlfriends. They’re like, ‘what’s skimo?’ It was unifying in that way, to have so many people learn about and enjoy it. It is a little overwhelming in a niche sport, in a small town. It’s eye-opening to think, what is life like for Mikaela [Shiffrin] or Jessie Diggins, who has this attention times 100, times 1,000?”
The most life-changing aspect of the experience has been inspiration to aim higher. Reaching the Olympics was certainly not the endpoint for Smith.
“The biggest thing is the validation of the journey, all the sacrifices it took, not just for Skimo and the Olympics, but this lifelong process of finding my potential in sport,” he says. “This whole thing is born from curiosity and where my ceiling is. Going to the Olympics doesn’t mean now it’s done. That box is checked, but the how-far-can-I-go-box is not checked. What’s possible in running?… The whole Olympic ordeal was so much more amazing than I imagined. I do want to be a part of it in 2030 and 2034. Hopefully they add that longer format individual race. In the short term, I have this opportunity to have a longer running season than in the past.”
Giving an Olympic effort at Mountain Games
Smith plans to spend the next few months testing his speed in elite running races around the world, including at the GoPro Mountain Games. Although he doesn’t anticipate fighting nerves like he did in his Olympic debut, he plans to bring fire to every event, including Pepi’s Face-Off and the 10K in Vail this June.
“I’m curious to find out what racing post-Olympics will be like,” he says. “I did the Grand Traverse; that felt like low-key community event. I don’t think the GoPro Mountain Games will be like that. It will be really intense and hard. It’s a good season kickoff, a first big competitive race of the summer, great prize money, great energy. I have a hard time imagining myself being nervous again. I’m sure I will at some point. I will be getting the same stoke, though. I will run as hard in Pepi’s as I did in the Olympics. Those two races are really unique and two of the best all summer.”
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