Ski San Francisco!

Jonny Moseley



Johnny Moseley



T.J. Schiller



Travis Parker



Travis Parker



Icer Event SF 2005

Yesterday was the kind of day to make me so grateful to live in such a spectacular city. After espresso and a check of the email, it was off on my scooter over to Ft. Mason where the Friends of the SF Library were holding their annual sale, so I stocked up on my missing volumes of Paul Theroux. Then it was up Fillmore Street to the base of the first Icer ski and snowboard competition. Two entire blocks of Fillmore were covered in snow trucked in from Lake Tahoe for the amazing experience of top-notch skiers blazing down one of the steepest streets in The City.

Only in San Francisco.

It was hard to say which was more exotic, a stifling hot day in San Francisco or snow on Fillmore Street.

The two extremes converged Thursday in Pacific Heights for Icer Air 2005, as thousands of people in shorts, tank tops and sandals cheered Olympic skier Jonny Moseley and 20 other professional skiers and snowboarders as they cruised down the Fillmore Street hill, flew off a jump at Vallejo Street and landed in a pile of slush near Green Street.

With temperatures hovering around 80, the promotional event sponsored by a Nevada spray-on ski-wax company went mostly smoothly after weeks of permit hearings, community meetings and complaints by neighbors frustrated over safety issues.

There were, however, some problems. At one point in the show, a snowboarder skidded off the landing strip and flew into the crowd. Two people were treated at a hospital for minor injuries as a result.

One of the injured was an Icer volunteer who was hit by the errant snowboarder.

"I'm just banged up a bit. I didn't get out of the way in time. It's not a big deal," said the woman, who was bleeding from the head as she waited to be treated by paramedics.

San Francisco Chronicle Link