No Snow = Bummer European Ski Season

by Neil Woodburn on

This is usually the time of year where we post about all the wonderful ski areas around the world where one can hurl down mountainsides of snow and powder and truly embrace the winter season.

Unfortunately, ski season hasn’t really arrived in Europe this winter.

Austria, Italy, Switzerland and other legendary winter playgrounds are suffering from a desperate lack of the white stuff; almost no snow has fallen. This is because Europe is experiencing its warmest winter on record. It’s so warm, in fact, that resorts can’t even make artificial snow in many cases. When the temperature does drop, resorts frantically pump out as much artificial snow as they can but this hasn’t been enough to prevent a number of Ski World Cup races from being canceled or postponed throughout the region–including the one that was supposed to be held in Chaminox this weekend.

A recent article in the Los Angeles Times documents the impact that such a sorry season is having on the resorts in Italy. As you might imagine, the financial impact has been difficult to swallow and resorts are losing money very quickly.

Is this heat wave an anomaly, or yet another indication of global warming? I think the signs are obvious, yet there are those who continue to challenge the growing mound of evidence which suggest the conditions in Europe this season will only continue to get worse.

Alta Ranks Among Top in Environment

by Erik Olsen on

Here’s yet another reason to love one of my favorite ski areas in the West: Alta.

According to a new report out from Colorado Wild, an environmental group based in Durango, CO, the resort ranks among the top ski areas in the West in how they manage the environment around the ski area. This is not so big a surprise to those who know and have skied Alta, which limits the number of skiers who can come on a given day and is generally off-limits to snowboarders (not that I have anything against MOST snowboarders).

The Ski Area Citizens’ Coalition report rates 77 Western ski areas on a matrix of environmental policies, such as preservation of undeveloped areas, so-called ”green building” practices and energy and water use. Sundance (Robert Redford’s area) and Alta resorts were ranked in the Top 10, but Idaho’s Sun Valley received a D on the report card, notching 45.5 points on a 100-point scale. Deedle deedle deedle. The fact is, lots of ski areas these days are overbuilding and over-developing. Have you been to Mammoth lately? It’s becoming fricken Disneyland. (they get a “C” in the report). These are important issues, and it’s wise to bring them into the public view lest our mountains become polluted, over-built amusement parks.

Wend Magazine

by Erik Olsen on

Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of outdoors/travel/adventure mags comes and go. At one point, when I was living in Seattle, two different friends tried to start outdoors magazines…and each failed. That said, it’s great to see new magazines try their hand at the genre, because there are a million great stories waiting to be told and a select few glossies (while strong) have long dominated the outdoor mag landscape. The fact is, when these new magazines are good, it behooves us to support them, because good writing/photography/adventure is hard to find.

And so let me now introduce you to a killer new magazine out of Portland, Oregon called Wend. I am reminded a bit of that salsa commercial when the true salsacionoados (inevitably dressed as cowboys) hear that the salsa they are about to be served comes from (add dripping disdain here) New York CITY?!. No, as we all know, the best salsa comes from the Southwest. Similarly, one can surmise that some of the best outdoors writing/shooting should come from the West, or the Northwest, in this case.

Wend is a wonderful new magazine that is now into its second issue. While the Web site is a bit sparse at the moment, the issue I have is filled with great stories and sumptuous photographs. A few of the stories available include Powder Lines in Pakistan, about two men who survive the first descent on skis on Pakistan’s Mt. Laila. And a story on Surfing Africa’s Zambezi River. Great stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree. We’ll be checking back with them in the future, so keep an eye out.

Ski Museum of Maine

by Erik Olsen on

I posted a little bit ago about a new book on the history of skiing. Seems like the topic is on a couple of folks’ minds these days. While I would be more interested if the new Museum of Skiing were in a place like Vail or Aspen so that you could admire the exhibits and then hit the powder-blanketed slopes, Maine works, too.

The museum is located in Farmington, Maine, a college town where the history of skiing…at least of the Northeast variety, goes back to before the Second World War. The history of skiing actually goes back quite a bit further than that, some several thousand years in northern Europe and Asia. In fact, pieces of skis dating back 5,000 years have been found in peat bogs, and cave drawings suggest early use of a form of skis, or so says Glenn Parkinson, author of First Tracks: Stories From Maine’s Skiing Heritage. Then there is Fred Flintstone, who can be seen in one episode skiing down the back of a Brontosaurus. So you see, skiing is reaaaal old.

Ski Montana LA Times

by Erik Olsen on

While I have long been a devoted fan of the skiing in states like Colorado, Utah and California (not to mention British Columbia, Canada, whose Whistler/Blackcomb resort is IMHO the finest in the land), I do have to say that Montana holds a rather powerful allure. Big Sky country they call it, for good reason since the sky there gapes like a testosterone-addled teenager at a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model shoot (sorry, swimsuit models on the brain right now), is said to offer some of the finest schussing this side of the Alps.

But Montana tends to get short shrift in the mainstream press, the longer, um, shrift, going to places like CO and UT. But here in this LA Times piece, the good folks at California’s best paper gives a rather wordy and positive nod to the worthiness of Montana skiing, and they have got my curiosity piqued for sure. Just take this single sentence on the two resorts they cover in the piece:

“Big Sky Resort and neighboring Moonlight Basin offer creamy, six-mile runs where skiers and boarders can go 20 minutes without seeing another soul – on the intermediate runs. On the expert runs, high up the hill, you can go hours.”

I am shaking, people. And over on kayak.com this instant looking for fares.