Skiing and River Sports
Steamboat Springs offers excellent skiing opportunities (also see history section) and has been the locale of world-class skiing competitions, including competitions for the 1989 and 1990 Alpine Skiing World Cup. The Steamboat Springs Winter Sports Club has brought forth many successful skiers, and the Steamboat Ski Resort attracts a large number of visiting snow aficionados.
The Yampa river is a popular conduit for water sports like fishing, rafting, tubing, and kayaking (playboating). The 4-mile grade II-III whitewater run through town ends with two surfable holes. One is called D-Hole; the other one—near the library, close to the Steamboat Spring—is named Charlie's Hole or C-Hole for short, after local kayaker Charlie Beavers (1981–2002). Beavers started kayaking at age 12, was the first to explore a number of rivers ("first descents"), and successfully contended in playboating competitions. He died in a non-boating accident in 2002. The hole and some kayaking events were dedicated to him.
Every year on the first weekend of June, Steamboat Springs organizes the Yampa River Festival. It includes a kayak rodeo (i.e. a playboating competition) which attracts national and international world class playboaters. Additional events include but are not limited to a downriver race which is Colorado's only upstream slalom race, and The Crazy River Dog Contest, in which dogs retrieve sticks from the river and may pass a whitewater section.
The defunct ski area Stagecoach is about twenty miles (32 km) south of Steamboat. It lasted two ski seasons, closing in 1974
Read more about this topic: Steamboat Springs, Colorado
Famous quotes containing the words river and/or sports:
“Nature seemed to have adorned herself for our departure with a profusion of fringes and curls, mingled with the bright tints of flowers, reflected in the water. But we missed the white water-lily, which is the queen of river flowers, its reign being over for this season.... Many of this species inhabit our Concord water.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“...I didn’t come to this with any particular cachet. I was just a person who grew up in the United States. And when I looked around at the people who were sportscasters, I thought they were just people who grew up in the United States, too. So I thought, Why can’t a woman do it? I just assumed everyone else would think it was a swell idea.”
—Gayle Gardner, U.S. sports reporter. As quoted in Sports Illustrated, p. 85 (June 17, 1991)