Only the winter-bare shoreline separates the blue hues of the sky above and Lake Minnetonka below as riders prepare for an icy turn across the frozen playing field. Photos: Chris Emeott
Frozen Lake Minnetonka serves a wintry mix of outdoor activities.
When Lake Minnetonka—in all its dynamic beauty—sits right in your community backyard, it warrants attention—all year-round. We’re well versed by now when it comes to warm-weather exploits. Winter also welcomes a host of outdoor activities, and some of them include utilizing the frozen lake in fun and, sometimes, bold ways.
The ice plays host to fishing, golfing (We see you Wayzata’s Chilly Open.), skating and more. Among those “more” are ice sailing and cold plunge endeavors, which we decided to explore with a closer lens.
Windy Winter Thrills
Alex Peterson remembers ice sailing on a frozen lake for the first time when he was just 5 years old. “It stuck with me forever,” he says. “It was just so exciting and so wild.”
Fast forward, and Peterson has made a career out of his enthusiasm for extreme sports. A co-founder of SkyBrothers Paragliding, a Wayzata-based adventure company, he loves sharing exhilarating experiences with others, including paragliding. Just last winter, SkyBrothers added ice sailing as a new endeavor for lake lovers.
Peterson says hurtling along the lake “like a rocket ship” at 50 miles per hour in his ice boat is just a normal winter afternoon for Peterson, who started offering his friends rides on a whim. He remembers that “people just kept calling” and asking to get an hour on the ice with him, cruising around Lake Minnetonka to experience the electrifying acceleration and wind. “It just blew up,” he says. Peterson decided to make it official: “I was like, ‘Let’s do it.’ And I got three boats.”
The instant popularity of ice sailing last year was unexpected for SkyBrothers. “I think one weekend we gave like 80 or 90 rides,” Peterson says. Bringing riders out on the lake in two-person style boats (Nites), Peterson shows riders the ropes—literally. “If you want to learn, I’ll turn that ride into a teaching experience. By the end of it, you’re sailing the whole boat with yourself,” he says. A new perspective on the lake is what entices people the most, Peterson shares, and Wayzata Bay was “absolutely stunningly safe and beautiful last winter,” he remembers.
Peterson says that he does not get much of a thrill anymore, as a life spent pursuing extreme sports, including hot air ballooning, paragliding and wingsuit skydiving, has normalized high-speed sports for him. “So being able to share [that thrill] with other people is really my favorite thing in the world,” he says. “The fun part is just looking at the astonishment on everybody’s faces.” He loves the “holy moly moment [when] everybody is just like, ‘This is so cool.’”
Lake Minnetonka area’s Molly Lang, who administers the Facebook group Our Lake Minnetonka Crew, loves everything about the lake, and she was looking for something new when she decided to try ice sailing. During her first ride with Peterson, Lang remembers seeing the view of Wayzata whiz by. “It was breathtaking,” she says. “Being on the ice was just completely different.”
Lang says that Peterson makes the experience special. “Alex has this really fabulous combination of just being an easy-going guy who has all this exciting stuff to offer and just wants to welcome people into it,” she says. “I would only ever do something like this if I felt 100 percent confident that I was in really good hands.” Peterson’s passion for introducing people to ice sailing is palpable. “You can just tell how happy it makes him,” Lang says.
Smooth Sailing
Photographer Chris Emeott isn’t used to being part of the action. Rather, he normally can be found out of sightlines, taking photos of the scenes before him from all the best angles. As the talented lead photographer for Lake Minnetonka Magazine and our suite of sister publications throughout the Metro, readers and followers often see Emeott’s inspired work in our pages and on our social media platforms. This time, there’s more to his story.
Emeott stepped into view by way of ice sailing around Lake Minnetonka’s Wayzata Bay with SkyBrothers Paragliding. The experience was new to him. “I try to avoid wide open spaces when it’s freezing cold out,” he humorously says. “I’ve never been propelled by much other than an engine while on ice.”
But as Emeott is for most assignments placed before him, he was game to give the sport a try. Donned in winter gear (He says, “It was extremely cold!”), a face mask and a helmet, he found himself ice sailing under a beautiful, clear-blue sky and a bit of welcomed wind. “It was very peaceful—occasionally hearing the skates on the rig dig into the ice while turning or the rustling of the sail when it caught a new direction of wind,” he says.
For those interested in ice sailing, Emeott has what one might consider to be a very Minnesotan recommendation: “Dress for the weather,” he says.
SkyBrothers Paragliding
Instagram: @skybrothersparagliding
