DULUTH – It was before breakfast and Carrie Bettendorf noticed three of her children were missing. The mystery didn’t last long. Her daughter, Della, texted a photo from the family’s 1-mile groomed classic trail through their yard.
Of course. A bit of pre-breakfast skiing.
“That’s how they’ve all learned,” Carrie Bettendorf said.
Della Bettendorf, a senior on the Proctor/Hermantown Nordic Ski racing team, is near the middle of the family’s 12 children, all of whom were initiated into the sport via pull sleds across the snow until graduating to skis once they could walk.
As their family grew — the oldest, Hannah Olson, is 25, and the youngest, Bjorn, is 6 — so has the line of Bettendorfs on the trail. It’s one of the ways this tight family spends time together. In the offseason, they run.
Bettendorf’s parents, Matthew and Carrie, were Nordic ski racers in high school. Matthew skis in the elite wave during the American Birkebeiner, held in Wisconsin and one of the country’s largest cross-country ski races, and grooms the trail in the yard. Carrie sometimes competes in the Kortelopet, a counterpart to the American Birkebeiner.
“They wanted to pass that on to us,” Della Bettendorf said. “We like getting out in to nature and enjoying God’s creation.”
Outside of her family of skiers, Bettendorf is one of Minnesota’s best high school cross-country racers. She’s the third-ranked racer in the state, according to skinnyski.com, and hasn’t lost a race this season.