Take a Leap Year leap: 5 odd extreme sports to try now

If you’re as timid as we are, the concept of “extreme sports” consists of white knuckling it in the back seat of some crazy Uber driver’s car en route to standing in line at the newest brunch hot spot. But believe us when we tell you there are folks out there testing the limits of human strength, endurance and in some cases, sanity. But hey, this is a Leap Year which means we’re all granted one extra “free” day to try something out of the ordinary. If you’re looking to use your extra day for a bit of adventure, here are 5 extreme sports to try now.

Also: 100 National Parks experiences you must try.

Kite skating
If you’re imagining a sport in which participants hop on a pair of roller skates and are whisked around via kite, you’re mostly right. Actually, what happens in kite skating is athletes use in-line skates, off-road skates or climb onto a mountain board and use controllable kites to propel them around open spaces at a speed of up to 60mph. Parking lots are preferred places for practicing kite skating but so is any flat space so we recommend a cool desert vista like the Mojave Desert in California or somewhere in Arizona.

National Park Cerro Negro East City of Leon,Nicaragua, Central America | Flickr CC: Sparkle Motion

Volcano boarding
We fully admit this one sounds pretty freaking cool. Thrill seekers hike to the top of an active volcano and race down one side with nothing but a board as their guide and only a helmet and orange jumpsuit for protection. An adrenaline rush is practically guaranteed as boarders surf down the 728-meter slope while reaching a speed of up to 50mph. The sport has been gaining steam (no pun intended) for more than a decade and can be done safely via an experienced tour operator at Cerro Negro in Nicaragua.

Slacklining
It sounds like a fancy way of saying tightrope walking and it is in that webbing is fastened between two anchor points. The difference here is that the webbing is tensioned to create bounce like the kind you might experience on a trampoline. That may sound scary but it’s not as if anyone is asking you to walk between the Petronas Towers in Malaysia. Instead, consider joining a meetup group in cities like Chicago, Washington DC or Louisville where you can learn the sport safely and without fear of any serious cuts or scrapes.

Mountain unicycler | Photo: “Making Hard Work of It” from geograph.org.uk by Mick Garratt via Commons

Mountain Unicycling
Like the mustachioed lumbersexuals who ride their unicycles around Brooklyn—but far less annoying—these adrenaline seekers hop on their unicycle and ride it around wherever they can find rough terrain. There’s no tour operators out there—that we no of—but so-called MUni clubshave sprung up around the country in recent years including meet up groups in places like San Jose, Seattle and Colorado and of course if you get yourself a good unicycle you can simply do it on your own.

Skishing
We have a feeling this sport is less about pulling some lip and more about pitting man vs. beast (or fish as the case may be). Skishing asks the question, why catch fish from land when you can level the playing field by casting a line from the water itself. In skishing, the player essentially bobs in the water and plays a game of tug of war with his or her aquatic adversary. The sport originated in Montauk, New York but has allegedly been popularized all over New England.

Tagged: California, Midwest, New York