Brains
It was the spring of 1984, and I was a graduate student when I spotted a small notice for a ParaSki competition at West Mountain near Glens Falls, New York. It was just a three-hour drive from campus and my home drop-zone at the Malone Parachute Club. At the time, I’d been skiing for about seven years and skydiving on and off for three, with a total of 217 jumps under my belt. ParaSki sounded like trouble in the best possible way. I signed up without hesitation and headed out, unsure what to expect from my first skydiving competition—and my first ski race.
Skiers tend to fall into two broad camps: outdoor enthusiasts or adrenaline junkies. For the first group, winter is for skiing, while summer brings hiking, backpacking, and fly fishing. Adrenaline junkies, on the other hand, need their fix year-round. In winter, that means skiing fast, taking risky lines, and launching off jumps. When the snow melts, they pivot to sports like rock climbing, mountain biking, hang gliding, or skydiving.
Now imagine a small subset of thrill-seeking adrenaline junkies who aren’t satisfied with keeping their passions seasonal—people who decide to combine winter skiing and skydiving into a single competitive event. That, in a nutshell, is ParaSki.
The sport originated in Europe in the 1970s among elite mountain rescue teams. These rescuers would parachute onto remote alpine terrain to reach injured climbers or stranded skiers, then ski down with their patients. The concept isn’t all that different from American smokejumpers, who parachute into remote wildfire zones, suppress the fire, and hike out.
From those mountain rescue roots, informal competitions emerged. Early events timed everything: the aircraft exit, free-fall, parachute accuracy landing, and finally a ski run down the mountain to the finish line. In those gunslinger days, competitors sometimes deployed their parachutes dangerously low to shave seconds off their time. Predictably, the risks piled up, and organizers got nervous. Eventually, the sport matured, separating the parachute accuracy event from the ski race and developing a scoring system that combined precision canopy landings with slalom skiing times. Governing bodies like the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) and the United States Parachute Association (USPA) formalized the rules—and ParaSki as a sport was officially born.
The United States lagged behind Europe, but momentum finally arrived in 1981 when the USPA hosted the first North American ParaSki Championships. The events were held at Park West (now Park City) and Jackson Hole. Kalispell, Montana’s Tom Heinicke captured the overall title, becoming the first U.S. ParaSki champion. Heinicke has since recalled those competitions with fondness and a touch of irony. He dominated the skiing portion and, heading into the final jump, was also leading the parachute accuracy event—until a friend casually remarked that no one had ever won both disciplines. On his last jump, Heinicke landed about two and a half feet from the target, dropping him out of first place in accuracy but still securing enough points to claim the overall victory. Decades later, Tom remains an active skydiver and skier, a testament to a lifelong passion for the two sports.
Throughout the early 1980s, ParaSki competitions in the U.S. were largely regional, sometimes doubling as U.S. team tryouts. These competitions along with the national championships were held at various ski resorts across the country. At peak popularity, large events attracted around 100 competitors—not massive, but impressive for such a niche sport. From these contests, American athletes were selected for the World Championships, typically held in the Alps. Early on, funding was minimal; most U.S. team members paid their own way to the international events.
Just as the sport was gaining traction, tragedy struck. On February 4, 1983, a fatal accident occurred during a ParaSki event at Gore Mountain, New York. A competitor, under canopy and attempting to land within the target area, was caught in swirling mountain winds and blown into nearby gondola cables. The resulting entanglement led to a fatal 75-foot fall. Multiple investigations followed, and in the aftermath, several prominent ski resorts prohibited on-site ParaSki competitions altogether making it harder for the sport to grow.
Even after the tragedy, the sport did continue its gradual and steady growth in the United States for several years, reaching a major milestone in 1995 when the World ParaSki Championships were held at Snowbird, Utah. It marked the first time the United States hosted the World ParaSki Championships, bringing needed attention to the discipline in the U.S. A well-crafted recap of the event appears in the June 1995 issue of Parachutist magazine, page 35, capturing both the competition and the excitement surrounding this landmark moment.
Around the time of the 1995 ParaSki Championships, rapid advances in parachute canopy technology began producing significantly more lift and greater forward speeds. These innovations didn’t just elevate competition—they opened the door to entirely new ways of blending parachutes and skis, and soon a few hybrid disciplines began appearing at ski areas around the world.
The first of these was Blade Running, introduced as a demonstration event at the 1995 Championships at Snowbird. Described in the aforementioned Parachutist magazine (June 1995, p. 45), Blade Running was essentially a high-speed giant slalom, but with a dramatic twist. Tall gates were set on a steep run at Snowbird, and competitors “swooped” through the course beneath fully deployed canopies. Victory went to the pilot who flew the fastest line from top to bottom, utilizing the advanced canopy aerodynamics. Blade Running would eventually evolve into what is now known as canopy piloting—a mainstream skydiving discipline no longer staged on ski slopes, but fiercely contested at both national and world championship levels each year.
Another closely related offshoot of ParaSki is speed riding. Drawing more heavily from paragliding than traditional skydiving, speed riding leverages even more advanced canopy designs and eliminates the need for an aircraft altogether. The specialized paraglider is deployed directly from skis, and the combination of downhill speed and refined aerodynamics allows the rider to skim the snow or climb hundreds of feet into the air rapidly. Due to differences in resort policies and operating culture, speed riding is most commonly practiced in Europe, or off-resort in the United States, where regulations are more accommodating.
- Related: The Women Speed Riders of Chamonix
After the peak in popularity, ParaSki in the United States steadily faded. Events became fewer and farther between, lingering into the early 2000s. By then, the U.S. National Championship field had dwindled to just nine U.S. competitors that participated in a event in Canada. The USPA organizers had to recruit additional jumpers simply to field a national team. By 2003, the sport disappeared entirely from the American landscape—which is probably why you’ve never heard of it.
ParaSki, however, lives on in Europe. Annual competitions are still held, with athletes primarily from Austria, Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, and Switzerland. Based on published World Championship standings, roughly 150 competitors participate across multiple classes at the World Championships. Unless you’re willing to travel overseas, American adrenaline junkies wanting to ParaSki or Speed Ride are limited to one thrill sport at a time.
And as for my own debut at that ParaSki competition in 1984? I held my own on the ski course—but on the jump, I landed just outside the five-meter target circle. Close enough to feel the sting, and just far enough to make sure I never forgot it.
