From the Idaho Panhandle

Skijoring in Sandpoint

By Cate Huisman, 1-17-11

	Sandpoint's skijoring competition gets under way with its youngest skijorer.

Sandpoint’s soggy winter carnival got a significant boost this year from the addition of skijoring to the annual festivities. Posters advertising the event were everywhere around town, and as the Pineapple Express approached along with the first day of competition, boosters reminded a skeptical public that the grandstand seats at the fairgrounds were all under a roof, so that watchers could be out of the rain even if competitors were not.

In skijoring, a horse and rider race around a U-shaped course while towing a skier; skiers have to negotiate gates and jumps while going as fast as the horse can tow them. In addition to the riding and skiing skills it requires, the event revives the archaic skill of holding a moving rope while skiing—one that many ancient skiers will remember from their experiences with rope tows.

This is not just some small-time entertainment that a group of townspeople dreamed up on dollar beer night at Eichardt’s. It’s a professional sport operating under the umbrella of the North American Skijoring Association, and Sandpoint’s first attempt at it carried more than $2000 in prize money while attracting competitors from several different states. Skijorers earn points on a circuit of events, too, and have a culminating competition in Red Lodge, Montana, every year.

As it turned out, the rain let up for the first day of the competition, and while the actual skijorers dressed in their usual jackets and gloves and helmets and goggles, many of those maintaining the sloppy course were wearing little more than t-shirts above their winter pants and boots as they tried to shovel some semblance of snow into the holes and pools that appeared in the rapidly forming slush.

Creating traditions that will no doubt be maintained for decades of future competitions, the national anthem was played while a horse towed a skier holding an American flag around the course (she skipped the jumps and gates for this demonstration), speeding up to a gallop as the lyrics came around to the land of the free and the home of the brave. The first skier was 4-year-old Avery Smart, son of two of the main organizers of the event, who was towed by a horse ridden by his mother. Avery went down in the melting muck past the second jump, and although he recovered to exit the course, his performance was a preview of what was to come.

The skijorers who followed provided plenty of entertainment, often being pulled forward and having to recover as they came off the jumps (particularly when landing in Avery’s puddle). The most entertaining if perhaps not the most competitive among them gyrated wildly on occasion, seeming barely to survive their 15-25 seconds or so on the course. (In fact, the announcer took to referring to those on horses as “riders” and those on skis as “survivors.”) Those with enough presence of mind left as they neared the finish line pulled forward hand-over-hand on their ropes, shaving precious seconds off their times.

The event was admirably inclusive, with roughly equal numbers of men and women on both skis and horses, a couple of snowboard-jorers (who provided extra entertainment as they tended to crash more often than those on skis), and a few mules—including a crowd favorite named Sweet Pea—thrown into the mix of towing animals.

A steady stream of enthusiastic and/or curious onlookers negotiated a long walk from the parking lot to the grandstand on a lane that parking lot attendees generously described as “plowed.” It was true that at no point did the crowd have to negotiate deep snow; water, however, was pretty deep in many places, as was mud and that favorite product of the freeze-thaw cycle, ice. Still, it’s a testament to the popularity of the sport as well as the winter travel skills of the populace that they arrived in numbers sufficient to fill the parking lot.

All in all, it was a great start for an event that helps the passage of the short dark (and in this case wet) days of winter with a sport that combines two favorite local activities. Let’s hope that the organizers can keep the momentum going and that we will see more of it in the future.

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