People practice alpine skiing on every continent. With over 10 million people learning to ski on Indoor slopes alone over the past 25 years!
Around 2,100 ski resorts have been identified around the world. The annual number of skier days has remained relatively stable, at around 400 million.
The number of people opting for an adrenaline filled ski holiday is also on the rise, so for all you exhilaration junkie’s out there, here are 10 things you didn’t know about skiing:
1. Arthur Conan Doyle helped to popularise the winter sport. Following a move to Davros, Switzerland in 1893 he mastered the basics with the help of the Brangger brothers. Together, they were the first people to make the 8,000ft pass through the Maienfelder Furka. Doyle was also the first Englishman to document the thrill of skiing: “You let yourself go,” he said. “Getting as near to flying as any earthbound man can. In that glorious air it is a delightful experience.” Doyle correctly predicted that in the future hundreds of Englishmen would come to Switzerland for the “skiing season”.
2. The sport known today as Paralympic alpine skiing started after World War II when injured soldiers, primarily wheelchair users, wanted to return to the slopes. As Austrian and German veterans began successfully adapting alpine skiing to their needs, Gretchen Fraser, the first U.S. alpine skier to win gold at an Olympic Winter Games, also began teaching skiing to amputees in army hospitals in the United States. Competitions started in the late 1940s.
3. Scandinavians were moving through snow on boards as early as 3,000 B.C., when skiing was important for both transportation and military purposes. Skiing began to be used as a form of recreation in the late 1800s, when people decided that flying down a snow-covered hill on skis would be pretty fun.
4. According to the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA): During the 2011/12 season, 54 fatalities occurred out of the 51.0 million skier/snowboarder days reported for the season.
5. Snowboarding is the fastest growing winter sport in the United States.
6. At 4,500 to 4,700 metres above sea level, the Jade Dragon (Yulong) Snow Mountain Ski Resort is the highest there is in China and the world.
7. The Tordrillo Mountains in the Matanuska-Susitna and Kenai Peninsula Boroughs in the southcentral region of the U.S. state of Alaska span a total area of: 3,858 square miles and approximately 1.2 million acres!
8. Speed skiing began in the 1930s as an advertising stunt for a ski resort in St. Moritz, Switzerland. Racers experimented with cones that covered their backs from the helmet down, which presented a more streamlined and aerodynamic figure when a skier was crouched into a “tuck” position. Some racers skied with as much as 71 pounds (32 kg) of ballast on their skis to increase their acceleration. By 1933 speeds of 85 miles (136 km) per hour were being reached by skiers carrying such weights.
9. The first chair lift was introduced in 1936 in Sun Valley, Idaho
10. The first object that resembled a snowboard was invented in 1965 and was called the snurfer!
If these weren’t enough for you, check out our Blog on ski resorts, fashion and off piste activities!
And of course if you are planning to head to the gleaming slopes, check out the forecast here.