[EVENT] Splash Down! The Top 6 Pond Skimming Events

This year the Pond Skimming World Cup is going to take place for the first time, at Banff in Canada where sunshine ski area plans to stage the event – inviting the winners of pond skimming contests at resorts from all over – on its last day of this season, Monday, May 23rd.

Here are some of the biggest and best pond skimming events.

Cushing Crossing, Squaw Valley, California, USA

The Cushing classic at Squaw Valley in California is one of the big name events in pond skimming, attracting a host of sponsors, and having run for more than 25 years.

Participants are challenged to cross the chilly waters of Cushing Pond on skis, a snowboard, or any ski- or snowboard-based vessel. This invariably results in colossal crashes, ultra-creative contraptions and hilarious costumes, with the spectacle being judged by a celebrity panel.

Cushing Pond is a proper pond, complete with rescue boat, and quite a way across, but competitors do manage to skim right across, at least some do. The competition is so popular it’s limited to the first 50 registrants who each pay $20 to take part.

Water Slide, Engelberg, Switzerland

In Europe it’s the Swiss resort of Engelberg that has built up a reputation as the leader in pond skimming events – of watersliding as they prefer to call it.
The event takes place up on Jochpass each April and the aim is to cross a pool full of meltwater on skis, snowboards or fun-mobiles without getting wet. It doesn’t happen often.

The Big Sky Pond Skim

US resorts are particularly keen on pond skimming events and there are plenty of great competitions, but few go bigger or better than Big Sky in Montana, who also put together a great video montage each spring. Rather than a simple pool you can expect multiple pools of various sizes and added features like rails to hit off. Their events attract big crowds each spring.

Here’s 2012, 2013, 2015, this year’s and the ‘Top 10 Crashes of 2009’ highlights video.

Schneetag, Aspen Highlands, Colorado, USA

In a variation on the theme, the eighth annual Schneetag staged earlier this month invites teams of four to create a craft that they will pilot down a slope and attempt to jump, skim or float across a 75 by 20 foot pond. To add to the fun, each team must present a theme and perform a skit before their descent.

Defi Foly, La Clusaz, Lake Annecy Resorts, France

More than a ‘pond skim’ as competitors try to slide across the large, 180m wide, Confins lake, whizzing down the snow ramp and on to the lake’s surface with thousands of people gathered to watch and rescue boats at the ready.

The dream one day is that someone will make it right the way across, and they’ve got close, with the record 155m, set back in 2010, the distance to beat.

1st Pond Skimming World Cup / 87th Slush Cup, Sunshine at Banff, Alberta, Canada

Pond skimming events are not a new idea although they have got much more popular in recent seasons. The Slush Cup, staged each winter at Sunshine in Alberta claims to be the world’s oldest, first staged in  the 1930s and back for its 87th installment this May 23rd.

This year there’s something new as Sunshine will simultaneously stage what is being billed as the first Pond Skimming World Cup attracting qualifiers from pond skimming events across North America (So not the world then?).  There has been a Pond Skimming World Championships at Vail, but that seems to be a different thing…

 

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