Is it skiing? Is it horse riding? No, it’s skijoring
Welcome to skijoring: an extreme — and quirky — winter sport that celebrates the unlikely melding of rodeo and ski culture in the U.S. Mountain West.
It's a heart-pumping, white-knuckle competition in which horses — and sometimes dogs, snowmobiles and even cars — tow skiers by rope at speeds that can top 40 mph (64 kph) over jumps as high as 8 feet (2.4 meters) and around obstacles as they try to lance suspended hoops with a baton, typically a ski pole that's cut in half.
Every winter, thousands of people converge on the old mining town of Leadville, Colorado, high in the Rocky Mountains — elevation 10,158 feet (3,096 meters) — lining downtown's main street and packing the saloons to witness one of the most popular skijoring races in the country. The spectacle, billed as «The Granddaddy of 'em All,» has been a tradition here since 1949.
«It's just the pure adrenaline that gets me to do it.… And then getting these two different groups of people together with the riders and the skiers. Usually they don't hang out, and getting them together, we mesh pretty well,» said Burri, who wears fringed leather pants with his ski gear in a nod to the sport's Western vibe.
Skijoring draws its name from the Norwegian word skikjoring, meaning «ski driving.» It started as a practical mode of transportation in Scandinavia and became popular in the Alps around 1900.
Today's sport is inherently dangerous, and injuries are not uncommon among riders and skiers alike. Indeed, one of the first riders in the Leadville race earlier
