At the Highlander Games, the strong men wear kilts

The New Hampshire Highland Games, the celebration of all things Scottish that attracted thousands to the Loon Mountain ski resort last weekend, is about many things: The gathering of dozens of clans, musical concerts and competitions, traditional food, and of course plenty of bagpipes and plaid.

While a casual attendee could have been encouraged to, say, don a kilt and give haggis a try at the various tents in the resort's parking lot, a very different and much more exclusive slice of Scottish culture was on display in a grassy field next to the mountain's quad chairlift. These were the Highlander Games, and only the truly huge were invited. But for those who made the cut – including 10 of the word's best, plus a number of amateur and masters competitors – lifting and throwing thousands of pounds of stone, metal, and wood over two days was the ideal way to spend the weekend.

"It's fun, as much as not being able to breathe with a 400-pound slab of steel on your chest is fun," says Gerard Benderoth, a police officer from Haverstraw, N.Y., after setting a personal record in the Husafell Stone event, in which competitors bear-hug a gravestone-shaped slab and try to carry it as far as possible.

"I love being a showman. It's a lot of fun, being big and strong," says the 5-ft. 11 in., 350-pound Mr. Benderoth, who competed despite breaking his elbow while making an arrest less than three weeks previously. "You can almost feel like you're somebody, you feel important, which is nice."

The term Highland Games typically applies to both athletic contests practiced for hundreds of years in Scotland, and festivals of Scottish culture as a whole. Dozens are held across the US each year. But the Highlander Games at Loon is a hybrid of sorts. Like the World's Strongest Man contests on the cable network ESPN, these games rely more on brute strength.

A few of the competitors are equally at home in both disciplines, but most concentrate on either one or the other, like Dave Barron, a discus thrower and shot putter in college. Mr. Barron entered his first Highland Games on a lark – and finished last, he says, in every event. Now a professional Highland Games athlete, the 6 ft., 3 in., 275-pound Barron says he feels a distinct disadvantage in the strongman events.

"Powerlifting is a lot more taxing. Throwing isn't that draining," says the lawyer and married father of one who lives in New York City. "It's not all about strength, it's also technique and timing, and power and practice, so the smaller, faster guys like me have a chance against the bigger, stronger guys."

While athletes in other sports are often known for protecting their secrets of training and technique, just the opposite is true at Loon, where the athletes coach one another through less-familiar events, especially complex ones such as tossing the caber – for many the highlight of the Highland Games.

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