Cooped Up? Get Uncooped.

Thursday marked the kickoff of the 13th Annual Ouray Ice Festival, celebration the phenom ice climbing in Ouray, Colorado's famed Box Canyon. To some, ice climbing is another fool's idea if cheating gravity by yet some other, more extravagantly dangerous means. To the town of Ouray, it looks like a major means of revenue as it draws ice fanatics from all over the world.

All over the country people are doing seemingly dangerous or absurd things in the name of festival around this time of year. While they may appear crazed or untimely, a thread seems to weave them all together: they are all getting outside and doing something together in the name of winter.

Here we give ode to the small townsman, the cabin-cooped, the SAD survivors, and the slightly insane as we look at some of the winter festivals around our nation.

Starting already next weekend is the town of Emmaus, Pennsylvania's Snowblast Festival, which claims to promote "merry-making marked with invigorating winter exercise, recreation, and entertainment." While you are in Emmaus you can run in a one mile "Frostbite Fun Run", while listening to roving musicians, finish in time to catch your Alpine Workout just before you compete in the slippery Tug-of-War (assumedly on ice).

Also next weekend, the Bavarian town of Leavenworth, WA hosts the Winter Play Day. Here, once you’ve already indulged in snow sculpting and tug o’ war, you can take the kids to the ice cube scramble, and finish off by watching the Smooshing competition. “Smooshing”, much like cross-country skiing, involves 8-foot long boards, but with teams of 4 each clipped in and racing down the town’s main street.

Let's move west. Head south from I-70 on Hwy 89 you'll find your way to Utah's Bryce Canyon. Bright red hoodoos contrasted with winter’s white provide a backdrop unique enough for outdoor enthusiasts. With the biathlon at its heart, the 22nd annual Bryce Canyon Winter Festival includes cross-country skiing and archery in several competitions and clinics.

Also available at Bryce is Yoga, kayaking clinics (because when I think winter I think kayaking), snowshoeing, and finally the People-Powered Sled Races, which feature those that will do anything to get a medal after their archery skills were shown up.

Heading to the Midwest, the Michigan Brewers Guild is hosting their 3rd annual Winter Beer Festival on February 23 in Grand Rapids. Beer and socializing would seem to some to be reserved to bars, but the chilly outdoors assures for a beer that never gets warm.

In 1986, the first group of people jumped into Seward, Alaska’s Resurrection Bay to raise money for the American Cancer Society. The event soon sold out and included busloads of people from all over. The Polar Bear Festival considers the “Plunge” the heart of its winter fun, but has also included many alternatives to 33-degree submersion. They include a waitress and waiter contest, Bachelor/Bachelorette Auction, a haircut-off, and turkey bowling.

Back in Michigan, the town of Caseville exercises some of the more creative ways of celebrating winter. This year marks 16 years of Shanty Days.

Notable activities include an ice-fishing tournament, Poker in the Beer Tent, Broomball, Human Bowling, Cold Butt Euchre, a Polar Bear Dip and the ever-creative “chick on a stick” race where two men carry one woman hanging from a pole suspended between them. Caseville gets my vote for the best way to beat winter blues outdoors.

Winter must inevitable come to an end, and depending on your affinity for cold, some think spring can be expedited. Fasnacht in Helvetia is a Mardi Gras style celebration in Helvetia, West Virginia.

The Saturday prior to Ash Wednesday, the people of Helvetia dress in frightful masks in order to scare away Old Man Winter and march through town, meet at the community hall and dance till late. The fiddler then announces at midnight that it is time to burn Old Man Winter.

The prettiest girl then hops aboard the shoulders of the tallest man and cuts down the stuffed man hanging from the ceiling of the room. They then remove the “man” from the room, drag him outside where they take their shots and burn him hoping to wield of winter in favor of spring.

However you celebrate winter, the key of surviving the cold and the dark are to spend it with those who share your adventurous spirit and the outdoors.