The National Toboggan Championships

January 30, 2002 6:58 AM

The National Toboggan Championships will be held this coming weekend in Camden, Maine. As a past resident of the area I can say that this event, and toboggan runs in general, are a blast. Read About or Listen to (about 40 minutes into the Real Audio File), descriptions of the event.

Any toboggan runs or similarly impressive downhill snow events in your neck of the woods?
posted by dhacker (10 comments total)

(about 40 minutes into the Real Audio File)

Is this a typo? If not, no thanks.
posted by hotdoughnutsnow at 7:16 AM on January 30, 2002

I hope there will be toboggan porn involved.
posted by rodii at 7:20 AM on January 30, 2002

Hey hotdoughnutsnow, you can just move the cursor to get 40 minutes in, you don't have to listen to the whole thing.
posted by dhacker at 7:33 AM on January 30, 2002

I think that in Wauwatosa, WI, I and seven friends set the downhill toboggan record for hitting trees while drunk one New Year's Eve.
posted by alumshubby at 7:42 AM on January 30, 2002

Here (Athens GA) we get a good snow about once a decade. There's a long, straight, tempting-looking downhill run on Baxter Street right beside all the UGa highrise dorms. What's impressive about this arrangement, when it snows hard enough to cover Baxter Street, is the number of folks who don't realize that after a long straight snowy downhill run (on, for example, trays swiped from the cafeteria,) that you then need a long unobstructed flat space where you can coast to a stop.

The bottom of the Baxter Street hill is a T-intersection.

We had our once-a-decade big snow in early January. Some guys tried to do the Baxter hill in a canoe, with predictable (by me, but not apparently by them) results. As the police spokesperson said, "You would think it would have occurred to somebody that canoes don't have any brakes."
posted by jfuller at 7:54 AM on January 30, 2002

The highest point of land near me is the top of the local garbage dump (which has been closed for a decade or so), so, this winter excepted, although it snows here quite a bit there's really no place to go sledding where it's actaully dangerous & exciting.
posted by skwm at 8:04 AM on January 30, 2002

Today is the first day of the Great Northern Concrete Toboggan Race in Winnipeg Manitoba. Freezing cold concrete...brrrr.
posted by RibaldOne at 8:18 AM on January 30, 2002

Woochers here in Duluth, MN participate extensively in EXTREME sledding. One day our favorite hill was outfitted with "The Nipple of Doom," which was a small mound of snow about three feet high. The hill funneled you towards the mound, and since you can't steer a sled you have a high probability of being flung far into the air.

Our friend hit it and all his downhill energy was instantly transferred vertically... he flew eight feet in the air and landed right back on the nipple. Concussion number three.

There is also a ski jump really close to campus, that a drunk freshman will occasionally attempt on a sled and break his arms.
posted by Dane at 9:33 AM on January 30, 2002

Forgive me for interrupting, but what's this "snow" stuff you people are going on about?
posted by majick at 1:07 PM on January 30, 2002

When I was a kid, my mom called my knit cap a toboggan (I guess she meant toboggan cap), that confused the hell out of my fourth grade teacher- who thought I lost my sled. "No, no my sled, my toboggan... my toboggan..."

I'm with majick on this, I live in Virginia, where it is over 70 today... this so-called winter sucks. Now, where are my shorts?
posted by hotdoughnutsnow at 1:40 PM on January 30, 2002