Over the weekend, skiers and snowboarders ripped through the outdoor arena of the Wasatch County Event Center for the annual Utah Skijoring event.
Teams of three formed: a horse, a rider and a skier or snowboarder. Competitors were timed as they were yanked over jumps, their gloved hands clinging to ropes attached to the backs of saddles as they desperately angled themselves to hit each blue or red marked gate along the course’s designated path. To miss one meant a penalty of three seconds.
The vibe of the event — cold hot chocolate sipped with cold beer, ski boots crossing paths with cowboy boots, puffer jackets worn above chaps and under wide Western hats — proved alluring to the community. With 350 teams competing, there were around 7,500 tickets sold, compared to 5,000 last year. Considering walk-in tickets, VIP seats and all of the contestants, co-founder Joe Loveridge estimated there were about 9,000 spectators Saturday. The event was also broadcast on the Cowboy Channel.
The intersection of Western culture, extreme sports and rodeo wasn’t lost on fans as they sent symphonies of cowbells through the arena, or on competitors, many wearing loud full-body suits or holstered toy cap guns around their waists.
Since its conception in Utah in 2017 by Loveridge and his lifelong friend and co-founder Brian Gardner, the skijoring event has continued to grow each year
Gardner and Loveridge both were on ski patrol and had spent their lives around horses. As Loveridge said is a regular practice around cowboys, he’d spent plenty of time being pulled on skis or an intertube behind various means of transportation.
“Probably around 10 years ago, I was up in Montana at a horse sale. Saw a poster about skijoring and never heard of it before,” Loveridge recounted. “I ran up and watched some of it and I’m like, ‘Gosh dang it, we need to do this here in Utah. It’s just perfect.'”
In Utah, a state that widely embraces horseback riding and skiing as large parts of its culture, the sport was quick to take root and grow.
“Brian started this thing with 30 people in their backyard. And then the next year it was 60, next year 120, and then it became an event. So in the last 10 years, this has gotten big,” said Clark Haynes, a Mapleton resident and long-time friend of the founders. Though he’s helped plenty over the years, this would be his third year competing.
Saturday’s events were fast-paced and lively with a warm sun and fresh-fallen snow.
Ryan Lewis, who competed in the snowboard category, wore a sheriff’s badge on top of a snappy black vest as he hit the jumps and was whipped around the edges of the course.
He and his rider, Jillian Long, knew each other from work. He saw the event four years ago and wanted to try it, but didn’t know where he could find a horse.
Long took care of that, and the two completed their first course Friday evening after only practicing once before.
On Saturday, they took about four seconds off of their previous time.
“The fact that you’re getting pulled by an animal with a personality makes it completely different,” Lewis said. “You just have to hang on tight.”
Snowboarder Matt Christophel and rider Emmalee Fowles had a similar experience with their 4-year-old horse Uno. They managed to get two practice runs in before taking it to the arena, and Christophel’s first run left him wiped out after five or six seconds. Saturday afternoon brought him redemption, and he ollied as Uno pulled him out of the exit gate.
“You’ve just got to know your horse,” Fowles said after their run. “Know what they can handle, especially when it comes to deep snow or quick turns, and know how they can pull a person, because that’s not normal. … It’s predator chasing prey at that point.”
As for Uno, Fowles explained, she loved the competition.
While several teams debuted their skills this year, others have been trying their hand at the other side of the rope for several competitions.
Rider Trevor Howard and snowboarder Scott Hoover crossed the finish line in well under 20 seconds, an impressive feat for those brave enough to take the course on one plank instead of two. They switched from skiing to snowboarding this year so their young horse, Timmy, could learn the sport at a slower pace, but that certainly didn’t mean slow.
“Timmy the horse is doing awesome. Trevor the trainer is doing awesome,” Hoover said just after their Saturday run. “Snowboarding is way harder. One edge, the rope pulls you funny, it’s just not natural.”
He said he had to resist the urge to ride it like a wakeboard while adjusting to being pulled over the snow by a rope.
Despite the challenge, Hoover and Howard both intend to continue their snowboarding ventures.
Others prefer sticking to the traditional two skis on the ground divisions, which made up the majority of the competition and saw faster speeds.
For his third year in the contest, Chad Hall was pulled in the century division with his brother-in-law Haynes atop Ginger the horse.
Before braving the course — which more than occasionally coldly embraced talented skiers who landed a jump at an angle or were caught sideways as tension was whipped out of ropes — the men had been on the event’s staff for two years.
“His plan is to hit all the gates and not get any errors, and my plan is to run the horse faster than last year,” Haynes said.
These two were competing in the century competition this year. For this group, the age of the rider and the skier had to add up to at least 100, and at 51 and 49, Haynes and Hall just made it.
On the other spectrum from the seasoned century division competitors were the 10-year-old or younger buckaroos, some of which held on for dear life while others came prepared to completely send it.
Vance Hoover, 10, said his favorite part was “to ride behind a horse.”
“You hold on to the rope and don’t fall,” he said with a smile.
While Saturday’s winning team traveled to Utah from Montana, and Loveridge said he by no means plans to close the competition to people willing to make the trek to Heber City from outside states, he said he wouldn’t mind if the competition remained a relatively local event.
“We don’t really need to grow it outside the state. We’re not part of any association. We’re not part of any series,” he said. “With Utah, we’ve got the population to fill the stands, and we’ve got the horse people and the skiers to get the competitors that we need.”
For those interested in competing who are unsure of where they can find the other half of their potential team, Loveridge said there’s a Team Up for Skijoring Utah Facebook page where people can find their team.
