Extreme snowshoeing? Yes, please!

Leave it up to us crazy Coloradans to turn anything into an extreme sport. Parallel parking, shadow puppetry, tax preparation -- you name it, we'll "extreme" it. The latest outlet for local adrenaline and bone-fracture junkies, it turns out, is snowshoeing. Yes, snowshoeing, that thing where you strap racquetball rackets...

By Joel Warner

January 20, 2009

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Leave it up to us crazy Coloradans to turn anything into an extreme sport. Parallel parking, shadow puppetry, tax preparation -- you name it, we'll "extreme" it. The latest outlet for local adrenaline and bone-fracture junkies, it turns out, is snowshoeing. Yes, snowshoeing, that thing where you strap racquetball rackets to your feet and clomp around in the snow in what may seem to be the least extreme activity ever. Well, if you thought snowshoeing was ho-hum, Bear Lake Snowshoe Extreme 2, the super-slick video above, will set you straight. Filmed in Rocky Mountain National Park, it's the brainchild of Denverite Jay Walthall, aka "Dr. of Wax," who was also the creator of last year's classic film Bear Lake Snowshoe Extreme, which can be seen on his website. I don't know about you, but I'm ready to grab some racquetball rackets and get EXTREME.

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Joel Warner is a former staff writer for Westword and International Business Times. He's also written for WIRED, Men's Journal, Men's Health, Bloomberg Businessweek, Popular Science, Slate, Grantland and many other publications. He's co-author of the 2014 book The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny, published by Simon & Schuster.

Contact: Joel Warner