Ross Anderson is the fastest American on two feet. A professional member of the obscure sport of speed skiing, he has been clocked at an astonishing speed of 154.06 miles per hour — the third fastest time ever recorded by a skier on Earth. Now, that's fast.

Of Mescalero Apache and Arapaho heritage, he grew up in an adopted family in Durango, Colo., and now lives in Taos, where he serves as the marketing director for Taos Mountain Casino. The six-time, all-American champion has pursued his passion for 16 years, racing mostly in Europe. Now tied down to earning a living, he did not compete this season but is still being asked to events. "My skis are waxed and ready to go," he says, "and I hope to get back on the circuit next year and gain another national title."

A few weeks ago, skiing behind him in a recreation mode at Taos Ski Valley, I observed how deceptively quick he is even on his shorty skis (his Atomic racing models are 240 centimeters long — almost 8 feet). While making lots of swooping turns, he still consistently pulled away from me and a few times pointed them through mogul fields and shot from view.

While just shy of the world record, Anderson has stood on the winner's podium at several World Cup events, including his second-place finish in 2001 at the infamous Aiguille Rouge course at Les Arcs, France, during the FIS World Championships, where he competed against 80 skiers from 22 nations.

The events take place on a course about two-thirds of a mile long, on slopes approaching 60 percent grade. Competitors wear aerodynamic helmets (costing thousands of dollars) and need about 45 minutes to wriggle into their skin-tight suits. Also required: nerves of steel, technical precision, excellent body conditioning and perhaps a smidgen of lunacy.

He has also seen two people die during competitions. "The speed suits of nonbreathable Latex we wear are like an inner tube. When you fall, you take off like a shot. Usually people fall at the bottom of the courses, in the compression zone where it levels out. But I saw a French guy fall on the approach to the start, and he slid off the course into a mogul field, where he began to catch air. He broke his neck."

He notes, "You don't want to fall. I learned the hard way. I had a fall at 131 miles per hour. I rag-dolled down the mountain for a bit, then settled onto my side in a long slide. All I recall are clouds and pain. Once I stopped, I wiggled my toes and determined I could move. Then I focused on my leg, which felt like it was on fire." In fact, the friction created by the snow had melted his suit into his leg. That night, changing bandages every hour or so, he drove to his next event in Sweden.

His trail to speed skiing began at Purgatory at age 6, where he graduated from slalom to giant slalom, to supergiant slalom and finally to downhill. "When I decided to try ski racing as a career, I wanted to try something different, and eventually I settled on speed skiing. I think it is the most difficult of all ski disciplines. You have to have everything together: in your body and your head. It requires tremendous concentration."

So how does he deal with the fear factor as he stands at the top of a course? "It's always in the back of your mind — knowing that it could be any one of us. You realize you are taking a big risk. But you can't fight it. You go with it; by accepting it, you can move on. You fight it, it just gets worse. What I do is, in my mind, I watch myself skiing the course in three 100-meter segments, from the top to the bottom, with no falls and no fear. On the course, if you've done it for a while and you're in that zone, it seems that time slows down. Your whole entire experience, vision and hearing are affected. When I broke the American record in 2006 at Les Arcs, that's exactly what happened. As I got into the start, I couldn't hear a thing from the crowd, even a helicopter hovering overhead filming."

While he has been featured in Sports Illustrated, was a guest on the radio program Native America Calling, appeared in a segment of a Warren Miller film called Freeriders and is a hero of sorts in Europe, on his home turf he is largely unheralded. But that's OK with the soft-spoken racer. He concluded, "Before I race, I always pray to Mother Earth and ask her forgiveness for skiing on her land. I ask if it's OK. When you ask, you show you are polite, instead of saying, 'I want this.' If you do that, then she will take care of you."

For additional details on Ross Anderson, visit www.rossanderson.org

Daniel Gibson can be reached at dbgibson@newmexico.com