Rolling with it

Next week could be a big one for Dakota Blackhorse-von Jess.

In fact, if Blackhorse-von Jess has his way, it could be the biggest week of his cross-country skiing career to date. A year after finding himself among the country’s best speedsters on the trails, the 25-year-old Bend resident has his eyes on capturing his first national title at the senior level during the 2012 U.S. Cross Country Championships, scheduled for Monday through Jan. 8 at Black Mountain in Rumford, Maine.

“To actually be sitting on the threshold now instead of trying to touch it — it’s cool,” Blackhorse-von Jess says of his quest to reach the upper echelons of his sport.

In some regards, Blackhorse-von Jess arriving at this point in his career is the result of a series of fortunate events. After growing up in Seattle, he tried cross-country skiing for the first time in his early teenage years while living in Pocatello, Idaho.

After his freshman year of high school he moved to Bend, where he enrolled at Mountain View High and joined the school’s nordic ski team.

“Some kids pick it up really quick,” says Blackhorse-von Jess, whose last name is a hyphenated combination of Nez Perce (via his mother) and German (from his father) surnames. “I did not pick it up really quick. I just knew how to work really hard.”

His ambition won out over his skill, which at that time was somewhat modest.

By his senior year, “I decided that I wanted to be a state champion,” says Blackhorse-von Jess, who graduated from Mountain View in 2004. “That was going to be the be-all, end-all of my ski career, because I had no concept of a bigger world of ski racing.”

But greater things were in store for Blackhorse-von Jess. His glimpse into that bigger world began when he decided to join the Mt. Bachelor Sports Education Foundation program. Within a few months, he was winning both club and high school races. He also advanced to the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association Junior Olympics national competition and placed eighth in the qualification round before wiping out in his quarterfinal heat.

Along the way, Blackhorse-von Jess decided he wanted to continue ski racing, and he decided to postpone college to stay in Bend and train. That decision proved fruitful, as he advanced to the 2005 International Ski Federation Junior World Ski Championships, staged that March in Rovaniemi, Finland. He recorded a respectable top-30 finish.

Since then, Blackhorse-von Jess has continued to progress. He won a junior national title (in 2006) and skied for Dartmouth College. (His time in New Hampshire was broken up on a couple of occasions by monthslong training stints back in Central Oregon under the direction of two-time Olympian Ben Husaby.

In 2010 Blackhorse-von Jess graduated from Dartmouth, where he was a double major in computer science and environmental studies. Since then, he has continued to pursue his skiing career in Bend with the Bend Endurance Academy. At the 2011 national championships, he posted arguably his best result at the senior level — fifth place in the skate sprint.

“I’ve had so many experiences that you don’t get to have otherwise, that if I had to do it all over again, I’d do it exactly the same way,” Blackhorse-von Jess says of continuing his skiing career.

He enters next week’s national championships in Maine as a mature skier who may just now be approaching his best form. Over the years, he has continued to hone both his body and his mind, which has assisted in his climb up the skiing ranks. He has developed into a 5-foot-9-inch, 190-pound powerhouse on skis, a solid — even burly — skier who would not look at all out of place in the weight room rather than on the nordic trails. He excels at double poling and can unleash explosive speed.

“When you have the three pieces — your psychology, your physiology and your technique — all making incremental steps, it culminates in big steps forward,” Blackhorse-von Jess explains. “And the trajectory has continued to be upwards. I’m always improving every year, and that has been … that’s been a big deal. That’s why I’m still here.”

Of course, if that trend holds, Blackhorse-von Jess will find himself in some rarefied air next week. He is not shying away from expectations.

“The goal this year is … to ski onto the podium and win the national championship,” says Blackhorse-von Jess, who plans to contest his specialty freestyle and classic sprints, which bookend the championships, and one of the distance races in the middle.

The opportunity is one he is ready to embrace.

“I used to walk up to the line and go, ‘Man, I’m racing with the big boys,’ ” Blackhorse-von Jess notes. “But now, I walk up to the line and go, ‘You boys are racing with me.’ ”