5 Wacky Winter Sports You Won’t Find At Lake Tahoe.

By: Aaron Robbins

There is no doubt Lake Tahoe is a world class destination for winter sports. With 7 major ski resorts and about as many smaller ones Lake Tahoe gives winter athletes access to a wide range of sporting activities.

Our winter sport offerings include but are not limited to: skiing, snowboarding, cross country skiing,snow tubing, snow shoeing, ice skating, snow mobiling and dog sledding. Lake Tahoe really has it all. Or does it? After looking for something new to try this winter, Blog Tahoe has discovered 5 winter sporting events that haven’t quite found a home in the Lake Tahoe area.

1.Skeleton
Think of this as the head first version of the luge. Competitors launch themselves a top a flat sled object and attempt to drive it down a track head first at about 80 mph. I wonder why they call it Skeleton?

2. Bandy
Bandy is an older version of ice hockey. It’s a a team sport with rules roughly similar to soccer. Like hockey, bandy is played on ice with teams attempting to send an object into the opposing team’s goal. In bandy a ball is used as the scoring object where as in hockey a puck is used.

3. Wok Racking
Wok racing is pretty much just what the name implies. Competitors use modified woks to race down a bobsled course. In order to build up enough speed and to be considered sufficiently dangerous wok racers often heat up the bottom of their racing woks with tiny blow torches.

4.Blade Running
Blade Running is a rather new sport attempting to marry sky diving, air racing and slalom skiing. Blade Runners jump out of helicopters typically flying a few thousand feet above a ski slope. If their chutes deploy the athletes attempt to negotiate a series of 10 foot pole banners in a slalom like manner. The sport was developed in Montana and due to its extreme danger, startup costs, weather prohibitions, required experience and general craziness Blade Running has had some trouble gaining a wide spread acceptance.

5.Ice Sailing
Ice sailing is similar to boat sailing or land sailing except it takes place and a large frozen surface. Ice Sailors can participate in the sport with the simple skates and a sail setup or they can use high end racing crafts which usually have a main sail and three blades. Lake Tahoe doesn’t freeze over during the winter and the lakes that do freeze are usually covered with snow not long after the ice would be thick enough to sail on. Outdoor iced based activities can be very dangerous, just last January a Sacramento man fell through the ice on Donner Lake and died.

While Lake Tahoe does offer quite a lot in the winter sports arena, it’s not likely to play host to these events any time soon. Even if it does, I’m not sure these winter activities were the new sports I was looking for. I just saw a bit on the television show “Survivorman” about dog sledding, maybe I’ll give the folks over at Tahoe Dog Sled Tours a call.

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