Seven Outdoor Adventures for Your Winter Bucket List
From an icy New Year’s swim off of Coney Island, NY, to sled races through the Alps, these global celebrations are worth building a trip around.
Reporting by Abby Ellin, Alyssa Giacobbe, Cinnamon Janzer, Jared Linzon, Jen Murphy, Grant Rindner, and Yolanda Wikiel
Few people have a lukewarm reaction to cold weather. There are the ski bunnies who love it, and the snowbirds who flee it. Whichever camp you fall in, we bet these seven winter events will tempt you to switch allegiance: to new snow sports like black-diamond sledding and skijoring) — and to embrace the brisk thrill of adventures in the cold.
Try the Chilly Dip
Brooklyn, New York
January 1, 2020
Test your mettle along with 3,500 other intrepid swimmers in the frigid waters off New York City’s most famous beach. The Coney Island Polar Bear Club, America’s oldest winter-bathing organization, has been taking cold-weather swims in the Atlantic every New Year’s Day since 1903. The club itself is so popular that it’s not currently accepting new members, but luckily its flagship event, the Polar Bear Plunge, is open to anyone willing to brave the winter waves. Participation is free, but the club encourages donations, which are used to support local nonprofits including the Coney Island History Project and Coney Island USA, an arts center that organizes the neighborhood’s beloved Mermaid Parade each summer. (polarbearclub.com)
Make Great Strides
Various locations, Canada
Late December through early spring
Canada’s breathtaking ice tracks, which have popped up across the Great White North’s woodlands and cityscapes, combine scenic cross-country skiing and ice skating. In Ontario, Arrowhead Provincial Park’s evergreen-lined trail winds through the Muskoka forest (discovermuskoka.ca/ice-skating-trail-arrowhead), while nearby Cranberry Ice Trail, alongside frozen cranberry beds, is lit by 400 tiki torches on Saturday nights (cranberry.ca/johnstons-cranberry-marsh/ice-trail). Domaine de la Forêt Perdue, halfway between Quebec City and Montreal, unfurls across bucolic French Canadian wilderness (domaine enchanteur.com/activite/domaine-de-la-foret- perdue). British Columbia’s 19-mile Lake Windermere Whiteway, on a frozen lake surrounded by the Rockies, is the world’s longest skating trail (tobycreeknordic.com/whiteway), and Ottawa’s Rideau Canal (ncc-ccn.gc.ca/rideau-canal-skateway), a unesco World Heritage site, provides a unique way to take in the sights of the capital city.
Dashing Through the Snow
St. Anton am Arlberg, Austria
Late December through early spring
In the Alps, sledding ain’t child’s play. In fact, it can get pretty extreme. When the lifts close, adults swap skis for wooden sleds known as rodels and race down the slopes. While some tracks venture into black-diamond terrain, with icy hairpin turns lit by the stars alone, others are mellow, floodlit, and family-friendly. At the sledding restaurant Gampen in St. Anton am Arlberg, you can fortify yourself with Schweinshaxe (pork knuckle) mid-mountain before rodeling down a 2.7-mile track (head lamps and helmets strongly advised) to the finish at Robi’s Rodel-stall, where you can warm up with a glass of Glühwein (mulled wine). (skiarlberg.at/en)
Break the Ice
Brainerd, Minnesota
January 25, 2020
Minnesota is known for its brutal winters, but that doesn’t stop more than 10,000 people from descending on Gull Lake’s frozen Hole in the Day Bay to pluck walleye and northern pike from the frosty water through more than 20,000 holes for Jaycee’s Ice Fishing Extravaganza, the world’s largest fishing tournament, which marks its 30th year on January 25. Competitors from around the globe come in the name of charity — and fierce rivalry — pulling ice houses onto the lake the night before, striking up campfires, and transforming the desolate lake into a bustling fishing village overnight. The next morning, snow pants–clad anglers emerge to claim holes, prepared with stacks of hand and foot warmers, buckets of supplies that become seats once lines are dropped, and stashes of whiskey and beer. (icefishing.org)
All Lit Up
Iiyama, Japan
Late January to late February 2020
For one wintry month, the city of Iiyama, in the northernmost part of Nagano Prefecture of Japan, blazes with 15 to 20 gigantic, glow-in-the-dark snow huts. Bonus: You can sit in them, too. They’re all part of the Iiyama Kamakura Festival, held from the end of January to the end of February at the Kamakura Village, just north of Iiyama. There’s snowmobiling, sledding, live music, fireworks, and, of course, those cozy snow huts. Since its first edition, in 2000, this annual event gives locals a reprieve from the icy weather, which can be pretty brutal in this mountainous region. Guests can sit in the illuminated huts — the kamakura in question — and dine on noroshi nabe, a hot-pot dish with vegetables and pork (iiyama-ouendan.net/en/special/kamakura).
Puttin’ on the Ritz
St. Moritz, Switzerland
February 2, 9, and 16, 2020
For more than a century, the Swiss resort town of St. Moritz has hosted White Turf, a decadent festival of horse racing, gambling, and champagne guzzling in the shadow of the Alps. Spread across three Sundays in February, this sort of frosty Kentucky Derby hosts some 35,000 fur-clad, mostly European, multigenerational spectators for whom the festival has long been part of family tradition. The events take place on the frozen Lake St. Moritz and include hurdle and sprint, harness racing, and the one-of-a-kind skijoring (Norwegian for “ski driving”), in which horses kick up clouds of snow as they pull jockeys on skis — “like riding into a blizzard,” in the words of one rider. (whiteturf.ch/en)
Let ’Er RIP
Nederland, Colorado
March 13–15, 2020
Head to the mountain town of Nederland, about 45 miles northwest of Denver, to join local Ned Heads, as they call themselves, for the Frozen Dead Guy Days, an event commemorating Grandpa Bredo Morstoel — the “Frozen Dead Guy” of honor. Let us explain: In 1989, the Norwegian died of a heart condition, and his family put him in a cryonic state in hopes that future scientific breakthroughs would one day bring him back to life. His frozen body eventually made its way to a shed near Bredo’s grandson’s home in Colorado, where it remains housed at a steady -60˚F. The quirky community of Nederland embraced its chill new resident, launching the three-day fête in 2001 to celebrate Grandpa Bredo’s life with a costumed Blue Ball, as well as parades and races featuring hearses and coffins, a polar plunge, icy turkey bowling, and slushie slurping, a.k.a. a brain freeze contest. (frozendeadguydays.org)
Foreign Exchange
Useful phrases for the snow-bound traveler.
By Dave Kornfeld
Blue Lagoon, Iceland
“Ég hef aldrei skemmt mér svona mikið í heitum potti með 200 ókunnugu fólki.”
Translation: “I’ve never had so much fun in a hot tub with 200 strangers.”
Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
“Sikudhani ingewezekana, lakini mlima huu ni mkubwa zaidi hata kuliko Toto walivyoelezea kwenye wimbo wao ‘Afrika.’”
Translation: “I didn’t think it was possible, but this mountain is even more majestic than Toto’s ‘Africa’ implied.”
Mount Olympus, Greece
“Día, eímaste sti mési tou cheimóna — touláchiston vále éna paltó.”
Translation: “Zeus, it’s the middle of winter — at least put on a coat.”
Bariloche, Argentina
“Si tan solo mis habilidades de tango se tradujeran en salir de un telesilla.”
Translation: “If only my tango skills translated to exiting a chairlift.”
Denver, Colorado
“This flatlander’s not from the 303. Which dispensary has the bombest dank?”
Translation: “I’m visiting Colorado from out of state and don’t know where to acquire the highest-quality legal cannabis.”
Québec, Canada
“Combien de tire d’érable puis-je ramener à la maison avant d’être officiellement considéré comme une exportation?”
Translation: “How much maple taffy can I take home before it formally counts as an export?”
