A cowboy, a horse, and a ski bum walk into a saloon.
No punch line: the group is in Leadville’s 145-year-old Silver Dollar Saloon, and these three are preparing to compete in the town’s 76th annual Ski Joring competition.
One of the longest continuous skijoring competitions in the world and the self-proclaimed “Grandaddy of ‘em All,” Leadville’s skijoring not only brings crowds to Main Street, but it helps preserve the town’s history as well.
“It’s an absolute adrenaline rush,” said Tony Fox, a retired skijoring competitor who volunteers for the event every year.
“You’re standing there at the start gate, and the guy throws you the rope, and you see the steed coming in, buckin’ and revvin’ and rarin’, and its nostrils are flarin’, and you just know that you’re in for an amazing 15-second trip down the avenue.”
Leadville has held its annual Ski Joring — which they officially write as two separate words in contrast to the more common spelling of skijoring — since 1949. The event draws fans from across the nation to the small town for the winter weekend spectacle.
Skijoring goes back centuries, and before becoming more closely associated with athletic competition, it was a form of transportation.
It was frequently used in Nordic countries such as Norway and Sweden, where travelers relied on elk and reindeer to pull them across snowy terrain.
The name “skijoring” comes from the Norwegian word snørekjøring, which roughly translates to “ski driving.”
In the sport of skijoring, a horse and rider pull skiers down a course with jumps and obstacles. Although some skiers and riders come to the event as pairs, others are teamed up on the day of competition.
Skiers tearing through the over 800-foot-long course are responsible for completing a series of jumps, passing through several gates, and collecting some of the orange rings hanging along the track.
At certain parts of the race, skiers can top 40 miles per hour.
There are time penalties added for missed jumps, missed gates and dropped rings. The fastest-time wins and champions are often awarded a custom Carhartt jacket.
Savannah McCarthy, a skijoring horse rider who has been competing in Leadville since she was 13, has 10 jackets to her name, one for every year she has competed.
“The first few ones I got were just large men’s Carhartts, so I could never wear them. They were always way too big, like down to my knees,” said McCarthy. “And then after a few years, they decided, ‘Hey, maybe we’ll wait to see who wins, and then we’ll order the jackets after that.’ So now I have some that fit me, finally.”
McCarthy was once one of the youngest competitors and one of the only female competitors in the races. Now, skiers and riders of all ages and genders compete.
While Leadville proudly hosts one of the most vibrant skijoring communities in the world, the sport finds its roots a bit farther north.
Skijoring originated as a form of transportation where an individual standing on some sort of wooden boards (and eventually skis) was pulled by a team of animals. The earliest accounts of a ski joring-adjacent activity could date as far back back as the Tang Dynasty, according to Persian historian Raschid ed-Din writing in the 1200s AD.
Skijoring as a competitive sport really caught speed around the early 1900s, particularly in the Swiss Alps and Poland’s Tatra Mountains.
Skijoring appeared on the international stage at the Stockholm Nordic Games of 1901 (where the skiers were still pulled by reindeer) and was later featured as a demonstration sport at the 1928 St. Moritz Olympic Games, with horses replacing the traditional reindeer pulling the skiers.
In the States, skijoring became popular in snowy areas like Lake Placid, New York, Hanover, New Hampshire and Steamboat Springs, Colorado. It was at the Steamboat Springs winter carnival where Leadville residents Tom Schroeder and “Mugs” Ossman first marveled at the sport.
As the story goes, Schroeder and Ossman were searching for a new way to bolster Leadville’s long-running Crystal Carnival winter festival.
They were instantly taken with Steamboat’s horse-pulled skiing. However, fueled by the need for speed and friendly competition, the pair turned to Ossman’s powerful Quarter Horses, who increased the speed of the event. They experimented at Ossman’s Ranch, and skijoring has existed in Leadville ever since.
Beginning in 1949, Leadville began recognizing skijoring races as an official town event, and by the 1950s, the races were held along Harrison Avenue, a main street that runs directly through the middle of town.
Gradually, the races moved off Harrison Avenue, and though they continued in areas nearby, the event lost some of the spectacle that existed previously.
It wasn’t until 1993 when Fox, who was leading marketing and development at Leadville’s St. Vincent General Hospital, and Ty Hall, who was working with Leadville’s Tourism Task Force, decided it was time for a change and bring the competition back downtown.
“[The reason] we did it was to stimulate the economy,” said Fox.
Leadville’s economy has historically centered around mining. It was first settled during the gold rush of the 1860s, and the town is named after the lead ore found in the area.
However, ebbs and flows in the mining industry have made life in Leadville turbulent. When mines thrive, so does the town; when mines slow, it hits Leadville hard.
As the demand for steel — and in turn, molybdenum, an alloy used to strengthen steel — declined in the 1980s, molybdenum mines in Leadville began closing.
“Leadville has had this boom and bust cycle since the 1800s,” said Hall. “And when the mine closed and all those people left, the town was literally a shell of itself.”
Hall moved to Leadville in 1988, when he said the town was marked by shuttered stores and boarded-up buildings as a result of a declining population and rising unemployment.
For several years, Hall volunteered on Leadville’s Tourism Task Force, a team of residents who were exploring new ways to boost the town’s struggling economy.
In 1993, Hall met Fox, who had moved to Leadville to serve as the Director of Marketing and Development at a nearby hospital.
Fox was tasked with increasing the hospital’s involvement in the community, and through his research, he was introduced to such noteworthy Leadville skijoring figures as Paul Copper and Jodie Manly, who is known to many as the godfather of skijoring in Leadville.
Both Fox and Hall were active skijoring competitors and devised a plan to return the races back to Harrison Avenue.
After speaking with all 44 of the businesses that lined the street and receiving almost unanimous support, the team turned to the city council for final approval.
“The road and bridge guys were like, ‘I just got done plowing the streets, and now you want me to fill it back up with snow?’ It wasn’t easy to convince them at first, but they ended up agreeing,” said Hall.
Fox and Hall teamed up with Leadville County Road crews to line the street with snow, and they tapped Colorado Mountain College students to help groom the course. A year later, in 1994, Leadville held its first downtown skijoring event in decades.
And the public took notice.
“The first couple times were quieter, but it’s grown and grown every year,” said Hall. “It’s a huge shot in the arm. Everything spikes during a weekend that usually was a slow time of year.”
The Leadville Ski Joring event now attracts thousands of visitors who pack the sidewalk to watch racers shred through the snow-covered Harrison Avenue. These fans pack the local restaurants, shops, and hotels that line the thoroughfare, providing business that has helped Leadville preserve its many historic structures.
“I mean, we’re sitting in a very vibrant, active hotel that’s 150 or some years old,” said Fox. “And it’s great that our little sport can kind of help boost the local business community here.”
Skijoring events currently take place across Colorado, the United States, and around the world. Many, including Fox, hope to see skijoring return to the Winter Olympic stage.
For now, regardless of how large the sport has and will continue to grow, Fox and Hall appreciate what skijoring means for the town and community of Leadville.
“It’s a total buy-in by the community. It takes the entire town,” said Hall. “And so to see the growth that has occurred not only from people coming but from people wanting to live here and stay here… it’s been great to watch and super fun to be a part of this event.”
This story from Rocky Mountain PBS was shared with KSUT via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, including KSUT.
Copyright 2024 Rocky Mountain PBS.
