Rodeo on skis gallops through downtown Salt Lake City

Salt Lake City hosts skijoring. Photo: TownLift // Michele Roepke

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — With one end of a rope gripped by a skier and the other by a horseback rider, thousands of spectators gathered on a snow-covered Downtown Salt Lake City street — with fresh powder brought in from Solitude Mountain—to witness the exhilarating sport of skijoring on Saturday.

The second annual Winter Roundup included celebrity guest forerunners members from the Utah State Legislature, also from the Salt Lake City Council, and nationally ranked professional bull riders who went on to compete in that night’s Rodeo held at the Delta Center stadium. 

All the horses, riders, and skiers were from Northern Utah.

Skiers and snowboarders as young as eight years old competed against adults as 16 teams rode one-by-one down the street catching air over small jumps, collecting plastic rings and being timed, all inside of a closed course with the street blocked off to automobiles. 

An announcer kept the lively crowd informed and entertained while they enjoyed food trucks brought in for the event. All the while, a mix of country songs and rap songs played over the P.A. system. Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song” with its theme of having a good time downtown was a fan favorite, perhaps since the artist had performed Downtown earlier this winter when the Utah Hockey Club had it’s premier game. 

Not unlike that live stage show, another free one was held at the conclusion of the skijoring event where a different band which was from Utah, to which there was dancing and crowd-surfing, changed lyrics from “Sweet Home Alabama” to “Sweet Home Salt Lake City.”

This skijoring event was also promoting the annual popular skijoring event being held this weekend in Heber City.

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All photos: TownLift // Michele Roepke