There are so many fun winter activities to choose from. Most people think of skiing and snowboarding, but there is so much more.
Snowboarding and skiing are very popular in the winter months. Many people enjoy going to the mountains and enjoying the fresh powder snow. There are also many places you can choose from to ski and snowboard in California. Some examples being Boreal, Sugar Bowl, Heavenly, Palisades, and more. You can rent season passes and gear from all these places as well.
There are also different types of skiing like cross country skiing, alpine skiing, and freestyle skiing. Cross country skiing is skiing but without any assistance by the chair lift or the poles to push the skier. Alpine skiing, also known as downhill skiing, is when, instead of carving the slope, they are traveling at high speeds down the hills. Freestyle skiing is skiing with tricks like flips and spins, along with using the parks at ski resorts. Ski jumping is where skiers try to achieve the farthest jump off a ramp.
Another fun winter sport is figure skating or ice skating, where people perform routines and tricks on figure skates on the ice. Ice skating has the same kind of skates and you glide across the ice. There is also speed skating, where the goal is to ice skate as fast as possible. There is also ice hockey, where people use sticks to shoot a puck into the opposing team’s goal.
Some uncommon snow sports are bobsledding, biathlons, lunge, and curling.
Bobsledding is where groups of two to four people, being timed, are in a sleigh and glide down ice-covered tracks. These groups race down these ice tracks and see who can finish the course the fastest. This game started in the late 19th century by Victorian Britain.
A biathlon is a sport that combines cross country, skiing, and rifle shooting. They race down cross county ski trails with rifles. The slower they are, the more of a disadvantage they have to hold the rifle while they ski and remove the harness while shooting.
Lunge uses a one or two person sled. A lunger begins sitting, pushing themselves from the start of the ramp, then they use their calf muscles, steering by their shoulders and feet while laying face down head first. They also compete timed.
Curling is a sport where players slide on ice towards a large target space with four circles. They have two teams of four players, each taking turns pushing stones across the ice into the circle–each team has eight stones. The goal is to get the most points and you get points by the stones being in the circle.
Skeleton is another winter gliding sport. A person rides in a one person sled, known as a skeleton bobsled. They slide down a frozen track laying face down, head first. Unlike the lunge, skeleton bobsledding always only has one person on the sled. They begin with a running start at the top of the track.
