Para-what?

If you had to act out "para-skiing" in a game of charades, would you know how?
I wouldn’t--and didn’t Friday night.

And perhaps that’s because I’m not even sure what the heck para-skiing is! I’m not alone. I see that someone posted a bunch of photos on Flickr and then sent out the question...Help: do you call this para-skiing?

I almost yelled that same question across the lake the other day. As I was running, I watched a person on skis, be pulled across the flat, icy surface by a massive parachute, a cross between a kite and a sail (ski-sailing perhaps?). When he or she pulled the parachute’s lines, he/she’d turn. It looked like fun, except I’d be concerned the wind would pick up and suddenly I’d be picked up.

Well, I have since learned that para-skiing came about in Switzerland in the 1960s. It actually came from rescue missions in the Alps. People would jump out of planes with parachutes, land and then ski to wherever it was they were going. Now, there are para-skiing competitions. You ski off a cliff, let the wind catch the parachute and then you’re airborne for awhile before landing back on solid ground. Supposedly though this is technically not para-skiing (even though everyone calls it that), but ski-paragliding. The layperson—me and many others—gets them confused all the time. The non-airborne person on the lake I run around is para-skiing.

Whatever though, I’d like to see you para-ski or ski-paraglide in a game of charades.