Cowboy boots and ski pants go together about as well as Gore-Tex bibs with a fur coat. It’s an unlikely combo—that is, unless you plan to go skijoring. (And trust me, you’re going to want to ride this trend.)
Skijoring is a high-adrenaline, low-temperature sport that involves a horse and its rider pulling a skier through a snow-packed obstacle course at full speed. For most Rocky Mountain towns, skijoring is a familiar winter activity typically accompanied by hot apple cider, slushy walkways, and crisp breaths. But in a post-Beyoncé cowboy core world, it should come as no surprise that wild western winter sport has joined the mainstream crowds.
I’ve spent many a cold Montana winter day bundled from head to toe in my backcountry kit, accessorized with my otherwise out-of-place Western round hat and bedazzled pink-lens sunglasses. Watching a similarly kitted-out skier as they full-send jumps, glide through gates, and reach for rings is an exhilarating experience deeply rooted in western mountain culture. Typically, ranching and front-country skiing represent two separate, yet equally important, economic sectors. Skijoring marries the two, bringing together people of different backgrounds and professional paths whose wintertime hobbies may vary dramatically.
Now, the once-niche sport is taking the national stage with the debut of PRO Skijor, North America’s first professional skijoring series. Although PRO Skijor will be the first to bring the sport to a national stage, the sport has a long history in the United States and beyond. The North American Ski Joring Association (NASJA), for one, is a national alliance that promotes individual events through its extensive network and represents the riders, skiers, horses, and organizers.
Individual, small-town communities like those in Colorado and Montana today host skijoring competitions to promote local tourism and provide a stage for competitors. But the sport itself has been around for centuries, according to the Wood River Extreme Ski Joring Association. In Scandinavia, people traveled during the harsh winter months by being towed behind a reindeer on long wooden skis. At the second Olympic Winter Games in 1928, held in St. Moritz, Switzerland, competitors demonstrated skijoring. It wasn’t until the late 1940s that skijoring as a sport was conceived, and the first competitive skijoring event in the U.S. was held in Leadville, Colorado, in 1949. There is also an ongoing push to include it in a future Winter Games, such as the 2030 or 2034 Olympics in Salt Lake City.
Now, skijoring’s latest evolution involves a much more expansive national audience.
“Generations of families and friends come together in a festival atmosphere to make memories around real athletes and beautiful horses,” PRO Skijor co-founder Brian Gardner tells Outside. “And if they want to join the race and click into a pair of skis or saddle up to try out the course themselves, all are welcome. Skijoring is for everyone.”
The 2026 PRO Skijor Frontier Tour, a six-city professional league, will visit cities across the western U.S., including Bozeman, Montana, and Boise, Idaho. League representatives tell Outside that each stop on the circuit will deliver an all-day celebration of snow, speed, and Western spirit, complete with live music, local food trucks, and family-friendly fun. Next year’s season is slated to wrap up in Salt Lake City with the 2026 Championship Weekend, where the best riders, skiers, and horses in the country will compete for the title and a serious cash purse.
“It’s rodeo energy meets ski-town attitude,” says PRO Skijoring co-founder Joe Loveridge. “Every run is different, every crowd’s louder than the last, and we can’t wait to bring that rush to fans across the Mountain West.”
Loveridge says skijoring needs to be Utah’s sport, but I’d have to disagree. Heck, maybe I’ll even strap on my skis and hop in the obstacle course to prove that skijoring is, indeed, for Montanans. (Stay tuned on that one.)
The post ‘Horsepower, Gravity and Grit’: Why We’re Obsessed With the Wild Winter Sport of Skijoring appeared first on Outside Online.
