Winter Sports Trips -- Extreme Sports and Easier Snow Sports

Romantic Getaways. Adventure Travel. One doesn't have to exclude the other. Active and adventurous travelers will tell you that romantic getaways and adventure travel make a great couple. Whether you want a special place for a Valentine's Day getaway, or an any-time-of-year romantic getaway, blending activities such as hot air ballooning,...

Snowkiting - when wind power from a kite hooked to a harness lets you ski or snowboard fresh backcountry powder for hours - is a fast growing sport. Picture yourself skimming atop virgin powder snow in an open meadow, on a frozen lake or sliding down a mountainside. When the wind is right, you'll be lifted off the ground and sail from 10- to...

Snowshoeing is a low impact sport that's fun, whether you amble through woods chatting with friends or race to get an adrenaline rush.

Picture Jackson Hole, Wyoming, as the base camp, from which you can ski, hike, mountain bike or go horseback riding on the sides of mountains or broad valleys, go fly fishing in golf-medal streams and explore Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.

Picture Vail, Colorado, as home base, from which you can ski on 5,289 acres of terrain in the winter, or raft, hike, mountain bike or go horseback riding on trails threading mountainsides and broad valleys in the summer. Year-round, you can, go fly fishing in golf-medal streams and explore Colorado’s high country.

The world's to ice climbers dangle from lines on the ice-sheathed Uncompahgre Canyon in Ouray, Colorado, during the Ouray Ice Festival. Ice climbing is one of the most popular sports in this remote town located in southwestern Colorado's San Juan Mountains, nicknamed Little Switzerland because the steep mountains resemble parts of the Alps.

Photographs and videos of the annual Iditarod Trail Sled Race, when mushers and their dogs navigate 1,150 miles of astonishingly beautiful but extremely desolate Alaskan terrain, captivate viewers. While you may never want to challenge the mountain ranges, ice-sheathed rivers and pine-shrouded forests that these men and women must pass through on their route from to Anchorage to Nome, you can ex…

Visiting Yellowstone in the winter you can snowmobile or cross country ski past steamy clouds drifting from hot springs, watch Old Faithful erupt framed by the setting sun, photograph bison from the safety of your snow coach and watch wolf packs through a spotting scope.

As the snowstorms sweep through the mountains from the Sierra Nevada and the Cascades on the West Coast through the Rockies, the snow layers keep shifting. With the increasing number of skiers, snowboarders and snowmobilers triggering or getting caught in backcountry slides, a growing number of resorts are offering avalanche awareness clinics.

Winter in Yellowstone is more than Old Faithful – It is snowmobiling, cross country skiing and animal watching, too, as these pictures show.

The Utah Olympic Park is a playground for adventurous winter travelers. If you want to zip down a bobsled run behind a World Cup bobsled pilot, try skiing down the Nordic ski jumps or take an extreme zipline ride here's the place to visit. If you simply want to learn more about the 2002 Winter Olympic Games you can take a tour while your friends...

Utah Olympic Park, venue for the bobsled, luge, skeleton and Nordic ski jump competitions, has three museums featuring the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, and Park City, Utah's history of skiing.

Ready to let USA Luge international medalists and coaches show you how to ride a luge downhill? Just plan a winter vacation at a ski resort that hosts one of the annual Verizon Luge Challenges.

Adrenaline junkies can jump on the fast track at the annual winter Festival of Speed at Lac La Biche, Alberta, Canada. Whether you're a participant in the car, snowmobile, ATV and motorbike races on the ice-racing tracks, or prefer to be a spectator, you can also go snowmobiling, take a dog sled ride, or try extreme ice fishing.

A bobsled ride down the track at Utah Olympic Park, site of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, takes less than a minute but you'll go 70 miles an hour or faster.

Lodging and Learning programs, and Ed-Ventures tours of Yellowstone National Park are entertaining ways to explore the nation's first national park in more depth.

Yellowstone in the winter is an astonishing sight. Spend a few nights in the park, staying at the Old Faithful Snow Park Lodge or the Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel.

Wrapping a winter vacation around a winter festival gives you a great reason to take a trip to resorts or regions that love to party when there's snow on the ground.

Skiing down Mt. Everest? Three extreme skiers challenged the Lhotse Face sucessfully after climbing to the summit of the world's highest mountain, during a fall expedition with Berg Adventures International.

"So you know not to impale yourself right?" my climbing partner Jens Werner said casually as I sized up my first ice route at Teton Ice Park...

Cross country skiing or snowshoeing on trails that pass geysers, follow stream and meander through woods, where you may see elk or deer, is a special way to explore Yellowstone National Park in the winter.