TRUCKEE, Calif. – Two Truckee sisters are melding rodeo with ski in their effort to bring the sport of skijoring to the Lake Tahoe area.

Stephanie Randall recalls skiing for the first time at just three years old. That’s also around the time she rode her first horse. At the age of ten, she was doing both consistently but never imagined she would combine the two nearly a decade later.

“You’re already doing silly things with your horses, so to incorporate two things that you really love is so magical,” Randall explains.

---

---

While Skijoring has a long history, it’s an up-and-coming sport in the U.S. that started gaining traction about 10 years ago where a skier is pulled behind a horse while navigating a course consisting of gates, jumps and sometimes other obstacles.

Randall and her sister, Elizabeth Zimmerman, started a group called Sierra Nevada Skijoring with the goal of sharing the action-packed sport and growing it in Truckee, Tahoe and outlying regions.

---

---

A mode of transportation turned action-packed sport

Skijoring is rooted in Scandinavian history as a mode of transportation dating back hundreds of years. Rather than a horse, skiers were pulled by reindeer.

Skijoring behind horses became a popular activity in Switzerland and France in the early 1900s. It soon made an appearance in North America as a recreation activity in New York and New Hampshire around 1915.

Skijor turned into a competitive race sometime after World War II. It’s reported soldiers returned home and had their cowboy friends attach a long rope to a saddle horn. Skiers held on as the rider and horse accelerated down a long straight-away.

Today the transportation turned pastime is now a specialized competitive sport where teams maneuver a course at speeds around 40 mph. Competitions take place in a handful of areas in the United States, including Montana, Utah and Colorado. The sister duo saw Tahoe’s potential as the next location for the sport.

“This area is so perfect for it,” Randall says. “I think there’s such a calling to incorporate our old historical roots with some of our new passions—that of the ski culture we’ve created in Tahoe.”

Bringing two communities together

Although both a horseman and a skier, Randall knows that may not be the case for everyone interested in skijoring.

“That’s the beauty of it,” she explains. “You could be a horseman, but you don’t have to be a skier. Or, you could just be a skier and never have even touched a horse before.”

A part of Sierra Nevada Skijoring’s mission is to bring both horsemen and skiers together, two groups that don’t often cross paths.

“It’s incorporating those two communities,” Randall says, “and finding the beauty and symmetry between that.”

A team connection

The sport brings together skiers and horsemen, but a skijoring team of course includes a third member—a trusty steed.

“Horses are so incredibly capable of what they can do and getting to unlock this skijoring side of things has really opened up my eyes to just how phenomenal and how diverse horses can be,” Randall says.

With speeds around 40 mph, it’s imperative that horse, rider and skier are in tune with each other.

“It’s not only a sport of skill, but also [of] connection with your teammates.”

Randall explains at such high speeds, the rider must calculate the turns along with the ability of the skier. The addition of jumps adds another factor for the team to assess. Trust, connection and knowledge of each partner’s abilities is vital.

The result can be an incredibly rewarding experience. “It’s such an amazing feeling to get pulled behind a horse on skis,” Randall expresses. “You’re going just as fast as that horse and that amount of power is really something that’s truly awesome.”

Getting off the ground

Sierra Nevada Skijoring is in its inaugural year. On its course to raising awareness around skijoring, the group is aiming to provide demonstrations and expositions in the next year where people can witness the event, learn safety practices, get involved and even try it.

As more of the community gains interest, they hope to one day create a race right here in Tahoe similar to those in other regions of the U.S.

“I really do think that this can come off the ground and be a phenomenal activity and event in the Truckee-Tahoe region,” Randall says.

Those interested can follow the group’s social media pages by searching Sierra Nevada Skijoring on Instagram and Facebook. The group will post updates about events, clinics, practices and how to get involved.