The Story of PRO Skijor: Where the West Meets the Slopes

It started with two friends who grew up skiing and ranching with their families in Utah, never realizing those two worlds would one day collide. Years later, that shared passion sparked a vision to grow the sport of skijoring and bring people together to experience something unlike anything else.

In 2017, when Joe Loveridge called Brian Gardner, neither of them knew that this call would change their future and set them on a journey to create the newest adrenaline-filled tour that the sport of skijoring had ever known.

"Joe called me one day and was like, 'We need to bring skijoring to Utah, it's so Utah and it's so us,'" Gardner shared. "Utah has an amazing ski culture and then a phenomenal and storied Western and ranching culture. We both were like 'This is amazing, and it's really our Utah sport.'"

When Gardner and Loveridge launched the first event in 2017 and co-founded Skijoring Utah, they were taken aback by several things. The excitement of the spectators who showed up to watch and the number of contestants who came to take part.

"We called our ski buddies and our horse buddies to come compete," Gardner explained. "Everybody just loved it. From the competitors and the people who showed up to watch, they had fun."

Since the inaugural event, both the competition and the crowd have grown every single year. Skijoring Utah has outgrown its venue three times, and it continues to expand at an incredible pace.

Now hosted in Heber, Utah, and selling over 10,000 tickets with more than 340 teams competing, Gardner and Loveridge have come to realize it's not just an event but a story being told.

"We've noticed that the spectators don't necessarily have some sort of history or even an affinity for rodeo or for skiing," Gardner continued. "The demographics that are in the stands come from every walk of life. Because I think what captures their imagination is we've got these horses and riders pulling these skiers at a super fast pace, and it just captures them."

Earlier this year, Greg Lipstone and Chris Castallo, both with storied careers, reached out to the founders wanting to get involved and help take the sport to the next level.

"There are some amazing athletes and some amazing stories." Gardner shared. "We all realized that we should be able to develop athletes in this space."

Over the course of an intense nine months of collaboration, we decided to expand and create PRO Skijor. The organization was established to create, plan, and execute a tour-based skijoring competition nationwide, with the goal of eventually expanding it globally.

With the Frontier Tour just on the horizon, with the first event kicking off January 16th, PRO Skijor is just getting started, and the future looks brighter than ever for this sport.

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