Nude skiing: Where you can do it and why you'd want to

IT takes a brave person to strip off and ski nude. Interested? Read on to find where and when you can give it a try.

Ski

I SKIED nude once. Got photo evidence too, but you don't want to see it. Trust me, you really don't want to see it.

The venue was Whistler, Canada. The occasion was Australia’s bicentennial in 1988. I was an 18-year-old on my gap year, except that the phrase “gap year” didn’t actually exist back then. Truth is, I was pretty much just bumming my way around Canada.

Literally, as it turns out.

The plan to ski nude was hatched a week or so before Australia Day. My Australian flatmates and I realised we had to do something other than drink beer and be loud and obnoxious in order to put a truly Australian stamp on this momentous milestone in our history.

Gallery: Nude skiing, you're sexy and you snow it

How, then, to celebrate our Aussie heritage in style?

Easy. Nude up. Because let’s face it, if you’ve never nuded up in public, you can’t really call yourself an Australian. It’s what we do. Well, once anyway.

There were several obvious problems. For starters, the cold. Skiing naked down a ski slope in minus 20 could pose all kinds of health issues beyond the mere problem of shrinkage.

Luckily, January 26 dawned clear and sunny. By Canadian standards, it was a relatively mild minus four or five degrees.

The next problem was the ski patrol. Canadians are a lot more prudish than Australians. While in some respects our cultural attitudes are similar, the Canadians don’t have as strong a larrikin streak as we do. What we consider hilarious they consider offensive, and ski patrol were likely to call in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, as the local cops are known.

We had to be smart, and we were. Six of us did the nude run, and we started in a clump of trees at the top of one of the chairlifts on Whistler’s Blackcomb Mountain.

Before anyone could do anything, we were away, whizzing past the sundeck of the restaurant at the top of the slopes, then down, down, down, under the chairlift, almost all the way to the village far below.

It was quite a thrill, and the cheers we received from people on the chairs were deafening. We got away with it too. By the time we ducked back into the forest and changed into the clothes in our backpacks, we were unidentifiable. It was the perfect crime.

There was only major downside to the event. When the guy in front of me went into the crouched skiing position known as a “racing tuck”, the view was not pretty to say the least.

Believe me, you really, REALLY don’t want to see the photo of that.

Why people ski nude?

According to one freelance writer, naked skiing is quite the niche market.

On the lovetosknow ski site, Kevin Casper writes: “Anyone can take off clothes and climb on a surfboard in the summer sun, but it takes a particular type of thrill-seeker to take off their clothes and speed down a ski mountain in the crisp winter air. More than just a show of toughness, naked skiing can be a sexy, exciting, and invigorating twist on a great sport.”

Casper reckons there are many reasons why people ski in the buff, from raising money to charity, to losing a bet or just for the sheer thrill of it.

For example in May this year the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation hosted the Bikinis for Breast Cancer event, raising $38,000 for charity.

The annual event, which is open to women of all ages, features women in their swimwear racing down the slopes in Lake Lousie.

And while he acknowledges charity events can be the big beneficiaries from those who ski naked, he warns against breaking any laws.

“Taking off your clothes in public is illegal in some countries. Even if the country has no law on the books relating to public nudity, certain regions or cities might have their own ordinances that prohibit such behaviour,” he says.

So where can you do it?

Interested in giving it a try? If so Casper reckons there’s a few slopes around the world known for its reputation for naked skiing including;
•Obertraun, Austria, considered the mecca of skiing in the nude
•Copper Mountain, Colorado which hosts the Eenie Weenie bikini contest
•Crested Butte, Colorado which has a tradition of naked skiing on the last day of its season
•Squaw Valley, California, which marks ski flick Hot Dog - The Movie by sponsoring a race contestants dressed in very little.

But Aussie ski fans fear not you don’t have to travel far to ski nude, New Zealand’s Mt Cheeseman hosts the annual Undie 500 race every August.

Gallery: Nude skiing, you're sexy and you snow it

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