Going for Gold

Olympic Sport: Ski Mountaineering

The Olympic skimo events will offer a sample of the skills needed for a successful uphill/downhill pursuit in a short, competition friendly format. Photo: iStock

Skimo, for short, makes its Olympic debut this year in Cortina, after gaining global popularity over the past 20 years. In the first stage, athletes ascend the mountain on skis, using skins to provide uphill traction. They remove their skis and continue climbing on foot for the second stage, pop the skis back on for one last uphill push, then complete the final downhill stage, navigating gates similar to the Alpine skiing events. Start to finish, the event is about three minutes long, so it’s high speed—and high intensity.

Try It with TPL: Many North American ski resorts—Nordic and Alpine—are in on the skimo trend, some more than others. But since it requires no chairlift (you’re the uphill conveyance, after all), you can technically give it a whirl just about anywhere with a slope and safe, stable snowpack. Though not an event for newbies, the Grand Traverse, a 40-mile uphill/downhill between Colorado’s Crested Butte and Aspen, is skimo at its best, and the course skirts TPL’s 6,000 Trampe Ranch project, where TPL protected a key, legacy landscape in the iconic Gunnison Valley. Come for the cardio; stay for the views. 

You Might Also Enjoy: The Whitefish Whiteout in Montana skirts Haskill Basin, a TPL-supported conservation easement that protected wildlife habitat and the area’s watershed. 

Olympic Sports: Luge, Skeleton, Bobsled

Feel the rhythm. You don’t need a steep pitch for big thrills. Any hometown sledding hill feels like an Olympic track if the snow is slick and you close your eyes. Photo: iStock

All three sliding sports take place on purpose-built icy tracks that send athletes careening down twisty turns at up to 90 mph and 6 g’s. If you have the stomach for such things, you can ride the tracks at former host sites in Park City, Utah, and Lake Placid, New York. 

Try It with TPL: Not quite your speed? Fair enough. Long before they were the best and fastest in the world, Olympic sliders probably experienced their first thrill just like the rest of us, from the seat of a plastic snow sled or toboggan. (Shout out, Rosebud!) And maybe they caught the bug on their close-to-home public sledding hill, like the one at St. Paul, Minnesota’s Frogtown Park.   

Olympic Sport: Skating

Adults and children practice outdoor ice hockey on a frozen lake. Photo: iStock

Speed, figure, hockey, curling (OK, technically not a skating event)—have been part of the Winter Olympiad since its inception in 1924. The rules, the equipment, and the venues have changed considerably in that time. But of all the winter sports, they remain among the most accessible, as long as you have a rink or frozen lake nearby. 

Try It with TPL: Few places are as nostalgic and charming as Knights Pond, Maine, which TPL helped save from development a decade ago and has been a popular spot with locals ever since. It’s open to the public, so all you need is a pair of skates and a healthy amount of care and caution to ensure the water’s fully frozen. No blades? No stick? No problem. Ever heard of broomball?  

Olympic Sports: Nordic Skiing

Trust us, cold is not an issue, no matter the weather, when you’re Nordic skiing. You’ll work up a sweat in no time flat. Photo: iStock

An umbrella term for a handful of disciplines, it encapsulates the origin story of most winter sports and proves that humans can’t help but turn things they have to do into things they want to do. Throughout history, we’ve gamified even the most tedious tasks—trudging through feet of snow in pursuit of our next meal and/or foreign enemy, for example, which gave us biathlon.

Try It with TPL: California’s Royal Gorge near Truckee, California, is as beloved as it is big. At 3,000 acres, it’s the largest XC ski resort in North America that almost wasn’t. When a former landowner tried to turn it into a luxury housing development, he learned just who not to step to: diehard local skate skiers and TPL, that’s who. 

You Might Also Enjoy: The Connecticut Lakes area in New Hampshire, Wolcott Community Forest in Vermont, or the North Straight River Parkway in Minnesota. But the truth is, with enough snow and personal motivation, almost any snow-covered park or trail is ripe for the sliding.  

Olympic Sport: Ice Climbing

Hooray, Ouray! It’s home to an annual ice climbing festival, which features some of the world’s best athletes on ice. Photo: iStock

Not an official event yet, ice climbing was a demonstration sport in the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, and the sport’s international governing body is actively campaigning for its inclusion in the 2030 Olympics in the French Alps.

Try It with TPL: Most climbable ice forms at Mother Nature’s command. But in southwest Colorado, the good people of Ouray created their own ice park where climbers of all levels—never-evers to the world’s elite—can experience the fun. Each winter, piped water transforms a natural gorge 10 minutes from town into a vertical cascade of climbable ice pillars, icicles, ice sheets, and cauliflower-shaped ice bulges. In 2007, TPL helped the City of Ouray acquire land from the U.S. Forest Service to improve the efficiency of park operation and maintenance.  

You Might Also Enjoy: Just a stone’s throw away (over a 14,000-foot peak or two), Telluride, Colorado’s Bridal Veil Falls freezes naturally, drawing climbers to its icy spectacle. In a series of complicated transactions, TPL protected the falls, and people can now access them in summer or winter. 

TPL’s Editorial Director, Deborah Williams, believes life’s a sport best played outdoors, and she has a medal shelf full (of participation ribbons) to prove it. An avid—if average—snow sports enthusiast, she’s attempted all of the above pursuits with lots of enthusiasm, occasional grace, and plenty of hilarious failure. She loves chasing the thrill of victory even if most of the time all she tastes is the agony of defeat.