Pro Skijor gallops through Kamas

Since mid-January, Jackie Nadel has been making the trek across Utah, Montana and Idaho to ski as fast as possible on a snow course while being yanked by a rope drawn from a horse — a fusion of cowboy and skiing culture known as skijoring. 

Nadel was one of dozens of competitors who committed to the first-ever Pro Skijor tour, which began in Heber City in January and ended in Kamas over the weekend. The competition involves a skier, pulled by a horse and its rider, weaving through gates and grabbing a ring while flying down the track and across a 15-foot-long jump as quickly as possible. 

“It was absolutely exhausting trying to balance skijoring and work,” Nadel said. “It was a lot of leaving late after bartending Thursday, Friday nights and coming back Saturday night at one, 2 in the morning, and then working the next day.”

But Nadel’s dedication paid off. Along with rider Kylee Nielson and a horse named Moose, her team, called “Babes of Glory,” won first place in Pro Skijor’s women’s division, narrowly beating out the “Stall Muckers” team composed of rider Nielson and skier Magnolia Neu.

“You become pretty good friends with everyone that you’re competing with,” Nadel said. “Even when I was neck-and-neck with Magnolia Neu … (or) she would beat me, I couldn’t be upset because I just love being able to watch my friends thrive and win.”

The competitors with the best times across the overall tour were invited to the finals on Sunday at High Star Ranch, where the winners were awarded prize money totaling $75,000 across five divisions: pro, sport (the division right behind pro in terms of skill level), women’s, snowboard and all-around, in which competitors must be able to ski and ride a horse, switching places with their teammate between competitions. 

But the most sought-after prizes, according to Pro Skijor co-founder Brian Gardner, were shiny belt buckles nearly the size of dinner platters, awarded to the first-place winners in each category.

Gardner founded Skijoring Utah, the predecessor to Pro Skijor, in 2017. The annual competition began at Soldier Hollow Nordic Center before being moved to venues in Heber City, such as the Wasatch County Events Complex. 

Gardner and co-founder Joe Loveridge both came from ranching families and were ski patrolmen for a decade at Sundance Mountain Resort. When they first learned about skijoring, they knew they had to bring it to Utah. 

“Utah has such a rich history in agriculture and farming and ranching,” Gardner said. “This sport draws two communities together that don’t always come together. … Maybe those people don’t normally hang out on a regular basis, but now, they’ve become best friends and teammates.”

With the help of media industry veteran Greg Lipstone, Gardner and Loveridge expanded the annual competition to a nationwide tour this year. The co-founders’ hopes are high. Over time, they’d like to add more tour stops and, eventually, circuits ranging from the East Coast to South America and Europe. 

“What we’re trying to do could be equated to UFC. I know that sounds big, but UFC, at one point, started here, a small, niche sport, and then they organized it and took it to the world,” Gardner said. 

Gardner, Loveridge and Lipstone aren’t the only people hoping to take advantage of skijoring’s growth. Entrepreneur Manjari Prakash traveled to the event from New York to take notes about the competition’s logistics: equipment, safety, insurance and so forth. She hopes to launch her own skijoring competition in Long Island. 

“Our horses are indoors, doing nothing all winter,” she said. “This is fabulous because a skier meets a rider and a horse. You’re not alone, (whereas) you ski alone. You ride a little bit alone.”

While Prakash thinks Long Island has the snow for skijoring — she “shoveled all last week” — the warmer climate in Utah was a challenge for the Pro Skijor organizers this year. Gardner’s never seen such high winter temperatures, which hovered around 50 to 60 degrees in Kamas on Sunday.

“The challenge this year hasn’t been snow. We can make snow. But it’s having the temperatures cold enough to make the snow,” Gardner said. 

That resulted in logistical difficulties. While the competition usually involves both horse and skier riding on snow, several of the competitions were changed so the horse would be running alongside the skier on a dirt path, so as to preserve the little snow on the course. 

While the finals competition on Sunday was supposed to be held at the Utah State Fairpark in Salt Lake City, it was moved to Kamas for the cooler temperatures at a higher elevation. 

“I reached out to the owner of High Star Ranch. … And they said, ‘We’re game.’ And in three weeks, we put this all together,” Lipstone said.

Despite the venue change, Pro Skijor garnered around 5,000 to 6,000 attendees over the two-day event. 

Lifelong friends Chase Vance, from Park City, and Ian Hoaglin, from Ogden, came to ski in practice runs between the finals competitions. 

Hoaglin crashed in what he described as a cartwheel as he came off the 4-foot-tall jump.

“I’m used to taking bodies. … This actually was a lot more pleasant than coming down a park jump,” he said. “I’ve got to find somebody who has a horse so I could be like, ‘Hey, let’s go practice,’ rather than just having to come (do this) baptism by fire every time we’re here.”

Hoaglin and Vance agreed that the most exhilarating part of the sport is being pulled by a horse. 

“I classify myself as a good skier. I’m pretty comfortable in all conditions. But there’s a lot to think about because you’re thinking about the horse, the rope, the gates, having enough rope behind you, enough rope in front of you. I don’t think I’ve ever been on more mental overdrive in anything,” Vance said. “If there’s anyone else who wants to try this for the first time, get as much information as you can from other riders. Just get the tips of what they suggest. But at the same time, if you have a good skiing background, trust your instincts and trust the physics.”

While Park City local Erica Hill has been skiing and horse riding for decades, she watched the competition from the sidelines rather than competing herself.

She came with her friend, Liana Mandryka. While moving the competition from Salt Lake City to Kamas may have been a pain for the organizers, the pair are glad the finals were held at High Star Ranch. 

“This feels like what it used to feel like at events in Park City where you could just rock up, park easily, hang out (and have) family-friendly fun,” Hill said. 

Mandryka said, “It definitely brought the homey, local vibe to it that might have been missing. If the location was Salt Lake City, it would not be the same.”