With New York in the troughs of one of the harshest winters in a while, Fordham students have been spending more and more time inside to avoid the slippery conditions. While most New Yorkers take to the winter outdoors for skiing or hockey, there are a few obscure cold weather sports that aren’t as popular, but can be just as fun. The city’s constant coat of snow and ice has opened up some opportunities for some of the less-than-traditional winter sports. Here are five sports that make for unusual winter fun:

Ice Sailing: Also known as ice yachting, this sport is exactly what it sounds like. Sailing… on ice. Originally played around the Hudson River, today the sport is played mostly around the great lakes in Canada and Michigan. In ice sailing, sailors take small sail boats to frozen lakes. They re-outfit traditional sailboats with two long planks that run underneath the boat. At each end, the planks are equipped with soft metal runners that allow the boat to slide across the ice. Ships move on wind, and crews consist of four to six people whose jobs range from balancing the boat, steering the ship and controlling the wind intake and speed. The games are traditional races across courses of anywhere from 15 to 20 miles. The boats can travel extremely fast, reaching up to 70 miles per hour, and races take about an hour.

Ski Biking: Think regular biking, but replace the wheels with skis and the ground with a snowy mountain. Ski bikers ride down a mountain similar to snowboarders and skiers on a special-made bike that is equipped with two skis and bends in the middle to allow for easier landing and turning. While the sport can look very intimidating (kind of like the newest Winter X games event) and difficult, the lower center of gravity and three-point stance of the rider actually give more balance and maneuverability. While ski biking can be difficult for those new to mountain sports, skiers and snowboarders will be able to pick up ski biking easily and may find a new sport they enjoy.

Blade Running: Of all the sports, blade running is the one most likely to cause death, which is also its main appeal. The non-Harrison Ford blade running is a sport where people ski or snowboard down a mountain. The catch is that instead of staying on the mountain, blade runners wear parachutes, go on steep mountains and jump off the edges in order to parachute through the air. The steeper the mountain, the more time spent flying through the air, avoiding trees and cliffs. Blade runners use the parachute to balance, and the skis to navigate and turn both while they’re on the ground and when they’re in the air. The sport has been gaining notoreity for its danger, with riders occasionally crashing into trees. “I definitely get the appeal of the sport,” Chun Siu, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’12, said. “But I would be worried about the danger. I would want to make sure they make sure it’s safe before I try it.” Despite the sport’s inherent danger, it has been gaining popularity among the more extreme athletes, who have even taken to using hang gliders as opposed to parachutes to fly faster.

Shovel Racing: As a broke college student, maybe you’re wondering where you fit into all these winter sports. After all, most college students do not have access to a sailboat in Canada, a specially made ski bike, parachutes, hang gliders and trips to snow mountains. Well, then consider shovel racing. All you need is a large shovel (maybe the one you’ve been using to dig yourself out of the constant snow) and a snowy hill (over this winter, this is every hill). To play, go to the top of the nearest hill, sit on the shovel with the handle facing forward, and slide all the way down. The goal of the sport is to make it to the bottom in the shortest amount of time without falling off. While the sport may sound simple, there are more intricate competitions, where people win prizes for not only best times, but also most stylish shovels. Because the only rule of the competition is that the person must sit on the shovels and the shovel must be on the ground, people can build extravagant shovels to maximize their flair and speed.

Polar Bear Swim: By far the most popular and famous of the sports, the polar bear swim is a swim through the chilly ice floe that is winter rivers and beaches. Polar bears take to the beaches during the cold weather months from November to February and swim around in the water. Unlike some of the other sports, the polar bear plunge doesn’t inspire much enthusiasm at first. “It sounds crazy,” Umair Kajn, FCLC ’12, said, “people swimming around in chilly water.” But to do the polar bear swim is a test of toughness, one that will not only leave you chilled and tepid, but with a let-me-tell-you-about-this-one-time kind of story. Also, plungers have used the swims to develop awareness for various environmental issues, such as, most fittingly, climate change.