It’s All Downhill

It’s an item on every Badger’s bucket list: tray sledding down Bascom and Observatory Hills. Students “borrow” dining hall trays and make the trek up the often-icy hill. Forms of sledding vary: the standard feet-first method; the slightly more daring head-first, luge-style run; and the DIY-bobsled method of linking up trays. Traying hasn’t always been the winter sport of choice, however. From 1886 through 1939, the university had an official toboggan club that practiced on a 600-foot-long slide that was constructed down Observatory Hill, ejecting the slider onto the frozen Lake Mendota.