Dave Schaut was just doing what he loved, riding rails at Beaver Creek’s terrain park, when someone presented him with a challenge: be the oldest man in the Guinness World Records to grind a rail.  

Schaut, of Avon, is 65 years old.

“A terrain park crew member at Beaver Creek was the person who suggested it. If you’re in the park a lot, they get to know you and he had seen me hiking the rails all winter and at the end of the season suggested that I go for the record,” Schaut said.

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Schaut wasn’t out to break a record; the category didn’t exist.

“No one had the record before me. I was the first in the category, so Guinness World Records created the category for me,” Schaut said.

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Schaut said that working with Guinness World Records was a lengthy process.

“Everything is done through messaging on the Guinness World Records website. They take quite a while to respond to messages. When they create a new record category, they create what are called guidelines for the record. Then, you have to satisfy each guideline,” Schaut said.

Schaut had his own account on the Guinness World Records website where each specified guideline is listed. Next to the guideline, there is a tab to upload evidence for that particular guideline, whether it be video, photos, witness statements, links or anything else.

“Once you have uploaded evidence to satisfy each guideline, you hit the ‘Submit’ tab and then wait. After they created the title for the category, it took them over four months to create the guidelines and send them to me,” Schaut said. “After I completed the record at the end of January, it took them another five months to review my evidence and approve the record. If someone else wants to attempt the same record, the guidelines will already be made, so it won’t take as long.”

At first, Schaut thought it would be something novel to do and wouldn’t take that much effort. Schaut has been skiing for nearly 55 years and started freestyle skiing about 16 years ago, and started hitting the rails more consistently about five or six years ago. Born in the United Kingdom, Schaut lived in Seattle before coming to Eagle County 13 years ago.

Schaut soon realized this feat would be harder than he had imagined.

“The minimum rail length required was five meters, or 16.4 feet long—longer than I was used to. Also, the rail couldn’t be wider than 12 inches. At first, it was hard to find a suitable rail, until Beaver Creek put up a 25-footer, or a rail 7.5 meters in their park. I decided to use that rail to satisfy the record, even though it was 8 feet longer than necessary,” Schaut said.  

Guinness World Records: Oldest person to grind a ski rail, male

• Date of record: January 28, 2022
• Place: Beaver Creek Terrain Park
• Equipment used: Armada BDOG Edgeless Skis, local rep Ephraim Learned
• Rail Type: Steel tube
• Rail length: 25′ or 7.5 meters
• Rail width: 9.5″
• PSIA Freestyle Examiner Witness: Josh Laney
• Witness #2: Beaver Creek ski Instructor David Lieberman
• Witness #3: Beaver Creek park crew member Sean Conlon
• Local Employer: High Mountain Taxi
• Eagle County Resident 12 years

“What’s funny is that once you receive the guidelines from Guinness World Records, you start to take it seriously and focus all your efforts on satisfying the record. I would say it took most of my productive freestyle time last season,” Schaut said. “Even after I set the record at the end of January, I continued to hit that same rail for the rest of the season.”

Schaut practiced for about two months.

“Guinness required me to grind a rail longer than I was used to and I wanted to be successful on the first attempt, so I think I hit the rail about 700 times before going for the record,” Schaut said.

Schaut hopes this record inspires older people to keep moving. He also wants it to motivate anyone of any age to try new things and to work at getting better.

“My daughter, Sophia, is nine years old and hits the park mostly to make dad happy. She does boxes, but hasn’t been on any rails yet. I think she’s going to do more now that she knows she can do it without getting hurt,” Schaut said.

This story is from VailDaily.com.