California is the capital of sports simply by its sheer number of residents involved in sports activities. If there's a sport to be had you'll find someone trying it out and eventually, there will be clubs, meetups and eventually leagues to compete.

When you combine year-round ocean activities with winter snow in the mountains you have the winning combination for never ending excitement created courtesy of Mother Nature. In addition to the countless sports festivals and races held on specific days or weekends, there are 'anytime' opportunities to help keep you in shape and healthy. The thousands of gyms and fitness centers are one solution, but those are mostly indoors. Here are outdoor activities:

Winter mountain sports: In California's fantastic mountain areas you can snow ski, sled, cross country ski, fish, hunt, snowmobile, try snow kiting, tubing and watch the dog sled races. There's even a winter zipline in Big Bear Lake (San Bernardino mountains).

Year round ocean sports: California is blessed with over 1,000 miles of Pacific Ocean that is monitored for water quality (healthebay.org). Sure, it's a little chilly but the water offers great swimming, surfing, sailing, boating, kite surfing, wind surfing, paddle boarding, stand up paddle and fishing.

Year round sports: In addition to those listed above, there's great mountain climbing, rock climbing, hiking, walking, skating, skateboarding, golf, Frisbee (disc) golf, Hang Gliding, water skiing, running, volleyball, soccer, sand soccer, baseball, football, basketball (even beach basketball courts), equestrian trails and so much more.

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