OKLAHOMA CITY — While most of Oklahoma spent the weekend buried under piles of blankets, driving at a snail’s pace, or cussing the weatherman, a small group of citizens were a little more open minded.

They didn’t complain about the ice.

They don’t care about the cold.

And you won’t find them shoveling sand.

These aren’t your typical, ‘oh-why-can’t-it-be-summer’ type people.

Seriously, for these people, an absolutely perfect day involves being outside in sub-zero temperatures and hurling themselves through the frozen Oklahoma air in a vehicle which has no breaks and is almost impossible, at best, to steer.

Call them Okie Snow Warriors.

And they only come out in winter.

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There’s a park in northwest Oklahoma City that is four blocks square; it’s nestled in a quiet, attractive neighborhood surrounded by sturdy looking houses.

And it’s shaped like a three-sided bowl.

There, three steep hills flow down into a low, flat field.

During the summer this park would be a royal pain if you’re the head of the mowing committee. But come January, let Mother Nature glaze those hills with about an inch of ice, and this park’s strange topography draws more people than Friday night at a Baptist prayer meeting.

Such was the case this weekend.

By 2 p.m. Saturday, University of Oklahoma student Scott Struby and his buddies Andrew Shomber, Eric Casso and Chris Hartman were already half-frozen and muddy.

They’d spent the past couple of hours riding small, brightly colored plastic discs down the steepest part of the hill.

“There ain’t nothin’ better than this,” Struby said, crinkling frozen eyebrows. “It’s a great place to ride.”

Grabbing his disc, Struby ran, then hurled himself down the hill again, dodging other sledders, trees and the large baseball backstop standing to the right — his ride took almost the entire length of the park.

For Struby and the group, this is the perfect day — cold, gray and plenty of ice.

“When you grow up in Oklahoma, you don’t see weather like this very often,” Andrew Shomber said. “So you want to take advantage of it when you can.”

Shomber isn’t kidding.

For this 19-year-old, the weekend was the rare opportunity for the perfect sled ride.

“You need three things for the ultimate ride,” Shomber said. “Speed. Improvisation. And, most of all, danger.”

Casso agreed.

“It’s no fun if it’s just a ride,” he said. “There needs to be some risk involved.”

As he finished his statement, Casso and Shomer both stood upright, side-by-side in two snow discs and shuffled their way toward the apex of the hilll.

They didn’t make it to the bottom standing.

Below, the ice revealed a tangle of arms, legs and, sadly, one broken snow disc.

Yes, some rides are riskier than others.

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They come in all sizes.

Moms, dads — and lots and lots of kids.

And they’ll use just about anything for a ride; cardboard boxes, an ice cooler, water skis, the occasional real sled.

“That’s the improv part,” Casso said. “You find something to slide on and well, you do it.”

To demonstrate, he stands in what looks like a bent trash can lid and pushes himself down the hill. Amazingly, he makes it to the bottom upright.

From below you hear him yell, “yeahhh!”

While improvising is part of the thrill for these four, there’s also some experience involved. “I’ve been coming here a long time,” Struby said. “I grew up around this place. And I’ve ridden about everything down this hill.”

So have his friends.

And the four have laid claim to this small, frozen stretch of land — at least temporarily. “We look at it as our hill,” Hartman said. “We been riding it a long time. And we’ve all survived.”

But these four don’t just sit on a sled and zoom past the world.

No, for them it’s style — along with danger, speed, improvisational efforts and of course, the iciness factor — that make these brief, frozen rides fun and worth the hypothermia. For them, cold, speed and danger are all a part of the effort.

“Sometime’s bein’ stupid helps,” Hartman said. “But it’s really just for fun.”

Don’t let him kid you, these guys are not stupid; in fact, the four seem naturals at geometry, rocket science, aerodynamics, urban garbage recycling and maybe even meteorology.

By this time, Casso has returned to the top of the hill.

He convenes an impromptu caucus and the group plans their next ride — it’s unanimous — they’ve decided on the human pyramid.

Of course, forming a human pyramid while standing on snow discs on the edge of an icy hill is, itself, difficult. And for the record: Human pyramids and sledding don’t work that well together.

Call it an implosion.

Call it bad planning.

Call it a wreck.

Still, they refuse to give up.

“It’s sort of a work in progress,” Casso said, stacking his buddies like cord wood for yet another try. This time, the pyramid collapses into a dogpile of frozen 19-year-olds — halfway down the hill.

And though the mind-numbing cold and the occasional broken sled might slow down their efforts, it’s their skill and determination which prove these men have earned true snow warrior status.

“We’ve got the bruises to show for it,” Stromber said. “We’re just like crash test dummies.”