DILLON - At the Dillon Marina, the boats are in dry dock, wearing their white winter plastic coats and an 8-inch layer of ice now covers the Reservoir. But Dan Burnett's short and sweet sailing season has just started.
"Lake Dillon gets between a week and two weeks of good ice boating," said Burnett.
He's one of a few who raise their sails after the snow falls, taking part in a unique high adrenaline winter sport called ice sailing.
"You're in between forces of nature that are powerful," said Burnett.
Using light weight crafts, cold captains race on razor skates to slice across the frozen water at very fast speeds.
"The other day, I saw an F-16 fly over head and I screamed at him. I said 'come down here and have some real fun,'" said Burnett.
Without much wind, sailors can cruise on top of the ice at 80 miles an hour.
"Ice boats can technically go four times the speed of the wind and on black ice like this - four times the speed of wind you got ten miles an hour - you got 40 plus miles an hour and that's plenty fast," said Burnett.
It's a sport that's also getting a lot of attention from tourists like Shelby Jones from Iowa who had to stop and see what was going on.
"They were just zipping by earlier," said Jones.
Burnett says given the speed, difficulty and possibility of crashing into open water, it's a sport best left to the pros.
"That's why we have life jackets ... and picks to pull ourselves out of the ice," said Burnett.
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