Imagine you’re at the top of a beautiful mountain, taking in the view. You turn to your left to see someone waving at you with an iron! Yes, an iron! You see that they’re standing behind an ironing board, pressing some fine linen.

The mysterious stranger goes on to tell you that he is participating in extreme ironing. But what is extreme ironing? Extreme ironing mixes the monotony of normal household chores with the exhilaration of skydiving. The concept is simple: while you are doing something extreme such as rock climbing or hiking up massive mountains, you bring clothes and an ironing board. Once you reach your destination, you start to iron your clothes and take pictures of where you took your iron.

How did this crazy trend start? We get to thank good old English for this sport. The origins of this sport go all the way back to 1997. Tony Hiam was trying to make fun of his brother-in-law who would always iron his clothes no matter where they were or what they were doing. Hiam was trying to prove that ironing was pointless, and to do so, he ironed while rock climbing and skydiving. While not intentionally trying to make a new sport, other people saw what he was doing and it took off, thus sparking the Extreme Ironing phenomenon.

The extreme ironing world championships were held once back in 2002, in Munich, Germany. There were teams from all over the world including, Australia, Austria, Chile, Croatia, Germany, and three teams from the UK. The athletes were given the choice of five areas to compete in. They could iron in a river, on a rock-climbing wall, in a forest, or in urban areas. They were judged on how creative they made their location, and the quality of their ironing. The United Kingdom took the win as well as third place and Germany took second place medal. The prize was a brand-new iron and a trip to Hawaii!

While there has only been one competition so far, we are all anxiously waiting for the next one. This sport may seem like a joke, considering it started as one, but it takes a lot of skill to iron a polo in the middle of a river.  It’s like something we should all try in life, so let’s go conquer the mountains with an ironing board and an iron in hand!