Anchorage’s Luke Jager leads quartet of Alaskans in top 10 of 10K freestyle on Day 1 of U.S. ski championships

For the first time in over half a decade, Anchorage is hosting the U.S. Cross Country Ski championships and Thursday’s action saw several skiers who are either from Alaska or have ties to programs in the state represent the Last Frontier in the men’s 10K individual interval start race on a frigid afternoon at Kincaid Park.

Chief among them was Anchorage’s Luke Jager whose mark of 21:39.4 was the fastest time by an Alaskan, third fastest by an American in the senior division and tied for fourth fastest overall.

“It was fun, these were the trails I grew up on, learned to ski race on and have had a lot of good races and a lot of bad races in the bank on,” he said.

Even though Jager came up short of the top spot on the podium, he was proud of how he raced.

“I definitely started pretty hard and my goal was to start pretty hard and hold on and decelerate the least I could,” Jager said. “I didn’t quite hold on as long as I was hoping to, but overall I was happy with it.”

Jager usually doesn’t fare as well in interval start races as opposed to mass starts but feels more “put together” now than he was in the past as this marked his best individual skate race finish of his career.

“I’ve worked pretty hard on the technique and my skating in general,” he said. “It was fun to get the feel of something I’ve gotten better at.”

Jager thinks “it’s awesome” that the U.S. ski championships is back in Alaska for the first time since 2018 but understands that it can be “a pain in the butt logistically to organize.”

“It means a lot and it’s fun to see so many people and volunteers I’ve been seeing my whole life since I was little,” Jager said. “It’s really fun to get to see all the people from all over the country and the world come to our home. It’s a sweet place but a little bit of an acquired taste so I like to get to show that off to people.”

He takes a tremendous amount of pride in representing his home state and town on the podium and was joined in the men’s top 10 overall by his Alaska Pacific University Ski Center teammates Scott Patterson (21:47.8), Hunter Wonders (21:54.1) and Michael Earnhart (21:57.4).

“I have a lot of pride to just be Alaskan at all and be a part of this community of people who are just really sweet people, nice and community-minded,” Jager said. “Living in Alaska in general is kind of a weird thing and we all have some camaraderie because of that and it gives you quite a bit of kinship towards the place and the people. It’s fun to be a representative of that.”

His mindset heading into the rest of the event starting back up on Saturday after a day off on Friday is to do his best every day, stay fueled and prioritize recovery which will include some soaks in a hot tub.

“I’m excited for both events this weekend and hopefully we can have a nice crowd out here and it’s not single-digit cold still,” Jager said.

Other Alaskans to crack the men’s overall 20 included a pair of University of Alaska Anchorage skiers in Matt Seline who led the Seawolves with by coming in 13th with a time of 22:10.3. He was followed by APU’s Garrett Butts at 14th with a mark of 22:11.0 and 19th was UAA’s Corbin Carpenter in a time of 22:27.6.

APU’s Thomas O’Harra (23:09.5) and Ari Endestad (23:32.2) joined their teammates in the senior men’s top 20. In the U23 men’s division Earnhart, Seline and Carpenter all finished in the top 10. The men’s U20 division, APU had three more top-10 finishers in Justin Lucas, Davis Isom and Dane Karch while UAA had Cole Flowers. Alaska Winter Stars’ Vebjorn Flagstad finished second in the U18 men’s division and his teammate Jack Leveque led an all-Alaska U16 division.

Coming in first in both the men’s overall and senior division was John Steel Hagenbuch, a junior at Dartmouth College and a multi-time national champion, with a mark of 21:23.4.

“It was a really hard race but it was a beautiful day here in Anchorage and awesome skiing conditions,” he said. “It was a super-fast course out there today and a lot of really strong skiers. It was super smoothly run and there was so many volunteers out here braving the cold and making sure it ran as smoothly as it did. I’m really glad to be up here and super grateful to be skiing fast and enjoying it.”

This marked his second national title in less than a year since finishing first in the men’s 40K mass start race at Spring Nationals last March.

“It’s a beautiful area,” Hagenbuch said. “Obviously it’s coastal but it’s also so mountainous which is a very cool thing and very different from where I’m from in Sun Valley (Idaho) which is mountainous but very far from the ocean.”

He has visited, competed and trained in Alaska previously and one of his favorite aspects about coming up North during the winter months is getting to see the northern lights.

“When the sun comes down at that angle, it’s pretty unique and I’m glad to be up here racing,” Hagenbuch said. “The last time I was here was for senior nationals in January 2018 which was a long time ago. It’s a little bit different being here winning the overall versus trying to qualify for world juniors.”

He has a lot of respect for the skiing community as many of his teammates and friends on the U.S. national team hail from the 49th state including Jager as well as Zanden McMullen and Gus Schumacher who are currently competing on the World Cup circuit overseas in the Tour de Ski.

“I’m familiar with Alaskans and Alaska,” Hagenbuch said.

When he is up here during the summer he enjoys outdoor activities such as mountain running and biking as well as roller skiing.

“I spent two summers up here training and the weather in the summer especially is beautiful,” Hagenbuch said. “It’ll be a blue-bird sunny day and over 70 degrees.”

2025 U.S. Cross Country Ski Championship

Men’s 10K Individual Start Overall

1. John Steel Hagenbuch, Dartmouth College, 21:23.4; 2. Andreas Kirkeng, University of Denver, 21:24.2; 3. Walker Hall, University of Utah, 21:38.0; 4. Luke Jager, APU, 21:39.4; 4. Hugo Hinckfuss, University of Colorado, 21:39.4; 6. Scott Patterson, APU, 21:47.8; 7. Hunter Wonders, APU, 21:54.1; 8. Michael Earnhart, APU, 21:57.4; 9. Reid Goble, 21:58.4; 10. Brian Bushey, University of Utah, 21:59.3; 11. Peter Wolter, SVSEF, 22:09.0; 12. Will Koch, University of Colorado, 22:09.3; 13. Matt Seline, UAA, 22:10.3; 14. Garrett Butts, APU, 22:11.0; 15. Krystof Zatloukal, University of Denver, 22:20.1; 16. Elijah Weenig, University of Denver, 22:22.0; 17. Luka Riley, University of Colorado, 22:23.8; 18. Florian Knopf, University of Denver, 22:25.1; 19. Corbin Carpenter, UAA, 22:27.6; 20. Eemil Juntunen, University of Colorado, 22:28.6; 21. Colin Freed, Michigan Tech, 22:31.0; 22. Christopher Kalev, Team Birkie, 22:32.0; 23. Philipp Moosmayer, UAF, 22:34.1; 24. Benjamin Dohlby, UAF, 22:35.2; 25. Jack Christner, Middlebury, 22:36.1