Glaciers shrinking in Europe are no secret, especially to ski racers.

Just eight years ago, U.S. speed skier Sam Morse remembers training on a glacier above Zermatt. When the training session ended, he skied on the glacier all the way down to the cable car’s mid-station and downloaded to town from there. Now, the glacier no longer reaches the mid-station. After a day of training, ski racers have to head back to the summit and download the full length of the cable car.

“In less than 10 years, the glaciers have receded a substantial amount, like probably almost a kilometer or two up the hillside, so you can’t ski out,” he described recently by phone from a training camp in Colorado.

Other U.S. skiers report similar observations. While training in Saas Fe in 2020, Morse’s teammate Erik Arvidsson remembers taking a lift above a bare slope. His coaches told him that they used to be able to train on this slope in July and August.

Earlier this fall, Mikaela Shiffrin adjusted her training plan to stay in South America longer than in previous seasons because training on Europe’s glaciers to prep for the Sölden World Cup is “really mostly rock at this point.”

Couple these observations with last year’s viral photos of excavators digging into Europe’s glaciers to make early-season World Cup race courses, and we have to wonder if ski racing is viable as climate change takes its toll. And worse, is it contributing to the problem?

Perhaps. But Morse and Arvidsson think the sport can lead the way in meaningful change.

First, the Bad News …

A slim minority of U.S. citizens believe that climate change is a hoax. But the facts are hard to deny. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has data showing that the ten warmest years since record-keeping began in 1850 have occurred in the past decade. And NOAA’s climate tools show that the planet will continue to warm rapidly.

In ski country, average daily temperatures in the early season (November) are already over two degrees higher than from 1950-2013—”a fairly significant increase,” said Chris Gloninger, a meteorologist and climate scientist for the Woods Hole Group in Massachusetts.

Interestingly, climatologists now consider December a fall month in New England, when the grass still grows and lawns need mowing. This is a monumental shift, added Gloninger.

Warmer air leads to warmer oceans that are slow to cool, and an ice-free Arctic sets up a wavy Jetstream over the Northern Hemisphere. These deep waves can plunge us into extremes, from a polar vortex to a prominent ridge that brings unseasonably warm temperatures north. The only good news is that warmer air masses can hold more moisture, so when it does snow, it can be a good dump.

But for how long?

NOAA’s climate projection tools predict that if we don’t drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions, average daily temperatures by the end of the century could be eight to 10 degrees (Fahrenheit) warmer than in the mid-20th century.

“The climate in Burlington, for example, will be more like it is in Poughkeepsie, New York, by 2060 and Washington, DC, by 2100,” said Gloninger, using data from Climate Central. This organization communicates climate change science, effects, and solutions to the public.

By 2100, the western ski cities of Denver and Salt Lake City will have climates similar to those in Mexico, though higher elevations in the mountains will remain cooler.

Europe is experiencing similar warming. A study by the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service showed that the Alps’ glaciers have lost 10 percent of their volume in the past two years. It’s no surprise that climatologists predict the end of snow sports as we know them in a generation or two.

FIS’s Efforts

With the future of winter on the line, the International Ski Federation has started to act. Earlier this fall, FIS released its, “a roadmap to a more sustainable and inclusive snow sports ecosystem.” The climate change section of the program lists one strategic objective— to reduce the carbon footprint of FIS activities and events as much as possible, become climate neutral, and support concrete actions to combat or adapt to climate change—along with several promising sub-objectives (e.g., reduce FIS carbon footprint by 50 percent by 2030 and achieve net-zero by 2040).

To achieve these objectives, FIS is taking (or aims to take) several actions to complete 26 by the end of 2024 and release an Impact Report in 2025. One of their first initiatives was to gather data to calculate and estimate the . For events, participant travel contributes 88.9 percent of carbon emissions.

Using this data, FIS is now maximizing the use of renewable energy at its headquarters, making every other FIS Congress remote and allowing judges from some disciplines to work at home during races.

FIS is also looking at a modified events calendar to reduce travel—”a balancing act between growing snow sports, by bringing events to as many viable locations as possible, while minimizing the season’s carbon footprint,” FIS said in a statement. For the 2024/2025 season, alpine skiers will only travel to North America once during the regular season—for the Killington, Mont Tremblant, and Beaver Creek World Cups. Sun Valley is hosting the World Cup Finals in March. Still, only 25 men and women qualify to compete in each of alpine ski racing’s four disciplines, reducing by about half the number of people who have to travel back to the U.S. from Europe.

“ForĚý as much as most elite athletes are based in Europe, we are an international sport,” said FIS General Secretary Michel Vion. “If a venue in North America presents ideal conditions at the time when our Finals take place, we would be remiss not to consider it as a strong candidate to host the event.”

FIS is currently working on a plan to start the Alpine World Cup a week later. They also eliminated early-season World Cup downhills in Zermatt—what Arvidsson described as a thorn in both FIS’s and the athletes’ sides. The race was canceled for two consecutive years, and photos of excavators digging into the glacier to build the course were not a good look for ski racing.

“[That race] forced us to be ready to race over a month earlier than normal, which increased the amount of international travel that we had to do leading up to that race, which, from a climate and from a personal standpoint, didn’t really feel necessary,” explained Morse.

To further reduce ski racing’s carbon footprint, FIS has listed several tools and projects to implement as part of the impact program, some more vague than others. Two concrete projects: create a to support local organizing committees and national governing bodies, and create a sustainable car/travel policy for FIS activities. But as Morse pointed out, U.S. alpine skiers are already doing their best to reduce transportation emissions. The team flies commercially, not by private jet like pro athletes in other sports, and once on the ground, the team travels as a group—“packed into vans,” he said, “not in our own sportscars.”

FIS also partners with global organizations, like the World Meteorological Organization, to provide data and expertise about climate change and raise awareness.

Could FIS Do More?

The Impact Programme is a positive step toward reducing ski racing’s carbon emissions. But Arvidsson and Morse likely speak for many ski racers and snow sport athletes who want FIS to do more. Some of their ideas are low-hanging fruit, others more far-reaching.

Shortening the Alpine World Cup season would be one easy way to reduce team travel even more. In its first season (1967), the World Cup tour started in January and ended three months later in March. While the tour still concludes in March, the front end gradually crept into the fall months, first December, then into November. Currently, the season starts in late October with the Sölden giant slaloms.

The early-season World Cups are important for the ski industry, generating excitement and thus increasing equipment and ticket sales. But Arvidsson thinks it’s worth examining the trade-offs. Rather than traveling to the Southern Hemisphere in August and September to prep for the early-season races, skiers could wait to train closer to home later in the fall.

“I recognize that having those early races is important for the business side of things,” Arvidsson acknowledged, “but depending on how important [the business side is] deemed to be, moving the race season to start around Christmas-time would dramatically impact the travel that the national teams would do in the off season.”

Limiting the race season domestically, especially for younger ski racers, would also help reduce the sport’s carbon footprint and the financial burden on parents. This type of change starts from the top.

“One way that FIS could do that is by restricting the [junior] race schedule to be from January to March, and incentivizing clubs and youth programs to take advantage of when they have natural snow available to them within a more reasonable radius in November and December,” said Arvidsson.

“There’s no reason that kids from Vermont who are flying all the way out here to Colorado right now and training here with us need to be doing that,” added Morse.

Policy Changes

But reducing a few hundred ski racers’ airplane flights is a drop in the bucket against the firehose that is climate change. Facing the challenges of a warming world requires dramatic, systemic change on a policy level. And this is where Arvidsson and Morse would like FIS to step up. Ski racing—with its visibility on the global stage and very existence threatened by a lack of snow—could be the face of climate change. As one of the world’s largest sports governing bodies, FIS could unite with the outdoor industry to make a big impact, challenging fossil fuel businesses, and significant greenhouse gas emitters to make dramatic changes to reduce emissions.

“I would say that it’s time to end the finger-pointing and work together with FIS to demand that they become a leader in the climate change conversation,” stated Arvidsson. “The primary skiing and snow sports organization in the world has a responsibility to ensure their future in the next 50 to 100 years. They can form a really strong coalition that can have a dramatic impact on policy levels in Europe, in North America, around the entire world.”

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If you’ve ever wondered what 28-year-old and two-time 2023 ESPY award winner Mikaela Shiffrin thinks is the toughest part of racing, well, it’s not actually the physical demands. We recently caught up with her during a quick break between training in Chile and jetting off to Europe to begin the World Cup season, and if there’s one thing clear it’s that Shiffrin is ready to ski, and we are more than ready to watch her season begin.

At the start of her season, it’s always hard to predict what exactly will become Shiffrin’s largest hurdle. And, as she told us, it might not even be a physicality. Shiffrin’s biggest challenge is mental when it comes to racing and competing. And even with her outstanding record and G.O.A.T. status (although ), she takes everything as it comes.

“I think its more difficult to train mentally [than physically] because you can’t train for something when you don’t know what to expect, so it’s more taking it as it comes versus training for something,” Shiffrin says, adding “I don’t know how I’m going to feel at the first race or at the middle or end of the season. I need to use the support system around me, and just take it as it comes.” She also places a heavy emphasis on the people she surrounds herself with who help prop her up.

“That support system is the most important thing, and being able to take advantage of the time that we have together with my family and the closest people around me when I get that time those are things that keep me in a good mental place to be able to go to the races.”

And as the race season commences at the Shiffrin is ready, and excited to be back (and since that means it’s practically ski season in the Northern Hemisphere, we couldn’t be more in sync). We, however, aren’t staring down the slalom wondering if we’ll secure 100 wins, unlike Shiffrin, who most certainly has it in the back of her mind.

THANK YOU to and especially our team (the coaches—Karin and Mark + my physio Regan, as well as my amazing servicemen duo—Robi and Lukas—for working so hard with the tough weather to still make the training days super productive!

— Mikaela Shiffrin (@MikaelaShiffrin)

“Right now, it’s not based off of any kind of record or specific kind of performance I want to have, it really just boils down to— I want to ski fast, I want to still feel like I have the ability that I’m still improving, and I feel good.” Oh, and on that coveted, golden hundred? “It sounds kind of simple to say, and there’s a certain amount of focus I have to put on results, but I try to keep my focus on my skiing and the clarity I want to feel when I’m on my skis and how I want to race. Hopefully, that won’t be the biggest challenge this year since the record happened last year, but now everyone’s talking about one hundred so please just get out of my head,” the latter comment she mentioned while shooing her hand away from her head, giggling.

Numbers and records aside, Shiffrin is already looking forward to her favorite event. It’s not on legendary soon-to-be Olympic snow in Cortina, or even the season opener in Soelden, Austria. Shiffrin has her eyes set on Vermont. will once again take place over Thanksgiving weekend and is set to have one hundred women from 21 nations competing for the podium.

“I’m always excited for Killington. The home races are always really exciting. They always manage to pull it off just before the race because they have the most powerful snowmaking on the planet.” She’s also looking forward to the roar of the crowds, “The people come from all over the East Coast, and they’re the biggest crowds we see on the entire World Cup. The crowds are unbelievable.”

And a face within those massive crowds? Well, that might just be singer-songwriter and famed Vermont native Noah Kahan. Kahan has spectated and performed at the Killington Cup in years prior and recently had a profile written about him as , and the writer? None other than Mikaela Shiffrin, who happened to spend several years living closeby to Kahan’s hometown while attending Burke Mountain Academy.

So many incredible people on this list. Beyond honored to be a part of this. Thank you so much to for such a kind write up. Upper valley forever

— Noah Kahan (@NoahKahan)

“I got a chance to meet Noah this year, he’s done some projects with the U.S. Ski team, and he did a concert in Killington… and then stayed for [the Women’s slalom] race and watched from the finish area, and at the time I didn’t make the connection. Then [this summer] came to the Taylor Swift concert with my teammates and me, and it was just the most wild experience.” Shiffrin explained that despite thinking he was part of the team when they first met (he was, after all wearing U.S. Ski team gear) they’ve kept in touch.

“And with that connection is why I think TIME asked me to write the piece. They give you the option between doing an interview and having a TIME writer write the piece, or doing it yourself and I said, I have to do this, and make it perfect and meaningful,” adding “If he reads this, I want him to cry.”

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American skiing great Lindsey Vonn won everything there is to win in alpine skiing before retirement in 2019 (Olympic gold, 82 World Cups, and multiple World Championships), but one last dream goal eluded her in her illustrious career: the notorious Streif downhill in Kitzbühel, Austria. The treacherous downhill course—immortalized by the 2014 film —hosts a stop on the men’s World Cup each year, however women race on different courses.

Now, four years after Vonn’s final downhill race, she strapped back into her skis, pushed out of the start gate, and entered the notorious Mausefalle (Mousetrap), with an 85-percent gradient, becoming the first woman to ever ski the men’s downhill course. She made her historic run on Tuesday, and to add to the intrigue, Vonn did it at night.ĚýĚý

“Only when you ski the Streif are you a real downhiller,” says Vonn. “The Streif is the pinnacle of all downhills, the most difficult course in the world. Nobody believed I could do it. After all my injuries, to now get the once-in-a-lifetime chance to kick out of the starting gate here and fulfill my dream is incredible. I’ve always had respect for the men that raced down the Streif, but I have even more respect now because it’s one thing to go down it and another thing to ski to win; and now I can fully understand what that means. It has given me a greater perspective on how truly amazing these men are.”

Her run was captured in the video below.

The Streif is considered the greatest challenge on the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup, and its list of winners includes some of the biggest names in men’s ski racing: Franz Kallmer, Jean-Claude Killy, Hermann Meier, and Didier Cuche, among others. In 2003 Daron Rahlves became just the second American to win there, behind Buddy Werner in 1959.

For her historic run, Vonn borrowed skis from U.S. skier Ryan Cochran-Siegle and had them prepared by her former serviceman Heinz Hämmerle to hit speeds of more than 60 miles per hour.

“I felt like I was jumping over the edge of the world,” she said.”I don’t think I’ve ever been so nervous before a start in my life. I’m a thrill seeker. I’m an adrenaline junkie, and I love pushing myself to the absolute limit; being on the verge of being scared. I live for a challenge like this.“Ěý

Vonn prepared for the occasion with intense training, despite the severe knee injuries suffered in her career. She was coached by Rahlves.

“To see Lindsey finally have a chance to ski on this track in this kind of situation is incredible,” Rahlves said. “I had no doubt she could ski it, but I was questioning if she was going to really ski it with a lot of determination. I was really impressed that she did. This is true downhill, if you make one mistake, you can have some bad outcomes. But the way she just came out to own it was really impressive.”

In an post on Friday,Ěý Vonn shared that she took on the challenge for her mother Linda, who passed away in August. “I knew she was watching me and was there as a guardian angel to help me accomplish this dream. I know she is proud of me. As she always ways.”

The 83^rd Hahnenkamm Races begin on Friday, January 20.

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