On a good day of powder skiing, the experience is elevating.
“You’re just like sitting on the back of your heels, letting yourself go,” said Katie Fischer, the president of the University of Idaho ski club. “Your tips are above the snow and you’re just, kind of floating.”
It’s fluid and it shouldn’t feel like a lot of hard work, she said. It’s like you’re weightless, loosely following the directions your skis take you.
But as climate change lurks in the background of international science and news, it begs the question: how will it affect snow and skiing?
“The brief story on climate change and snow is kind of what you would expect,” said Tim Link, a professor of hydrology at UI who studies snowpack. “It’s getting warmer everywhere.”
Nationally, it is projected that skiing seasons will get shorter, with the best conditions becoming less frequent and with different dangers.
Warmer, wetter winters
The hydrologic cycle is projected to increase, Link said, making for more precipitation and more intense rain and snow events. Put simply, on average there will be more rain and less snow in the winter.
This can vary, as some areas are seeing an increase in snow, but those areas resilient to the effects tend to be at higher elevations, as they are colder.
Link said one of his students, Zion Klos, had studied and published on the rain-snow transition zone. His projections broadly indicated a 30% decrease in snow dominated areas by the middle of the century.
Link said when looking at Klos’ map from a recreative perspective, areas of light grey and light pink were the most concerning. They may be snow-dominated areas now but will likely see more midwinter rain in the future.
Link said another student, Adrienne Marshall, did a study on back-to-back snow drought frequency, looking at consecutive years with low or early snowpack. She found the chance of back-to-back snow drought years are set to increase drastically. There is a 7% chance of back-to-back snow drought years now, but that number could grow higher than 40% in the future.
Snow Quality
Another factor, from a recreative standpoint, is the quality of the snow. Link said not too many people have studied the quality, but it goes without saying that it will change.
“It’s one thing if its snow, but then if you get a mid-winter melt event and your snowpack turns into ice and then refreezes, then skiing is skiable but it’s crappy,” Link said.
Especially for backcountry skiing, which doesn’t have groomers to break up rough snow, good days of skiing might be harder to come by.
“If you are somebody that has a flexible kind of job where you can really take the opportunity to get out and recreate when conditions are good, it’s great,” Link said. “But if you are tied to the weekends then you are sort of in a bind.”
Avalanche risk
Nate Moody, the outdoor program coordinator who teaches avalanche training courses at UI, said warmer and wetter conditions don’t make for more avalanche risk but can make for different types of avalanche risk.
“One of the ways I like to think about the snowpack is kind of the personality of the winter season,” Moody said.
Overall, avalanche conditions boil down to there being a weak layer in the snowpack. One instance of a weak layer can be from an early snowfall in October, Moody said.
If it warms up, then cools back down when winter sets in, it changes the old snow and warps its crystal structure. As more snow piles on top of this, the extra weight puts stress on it. When the old weak layer fails, it can be catastrophic.
But not all recreation has equal risk. Ski resorts have risk management tools and ski patrols that mitigate the hazards of avalanches. They may close areas or trigger avalanches before other people do. But risks in the backcountry remain until the avalanche is triggered or avoided.
On top of the risk of getting caught in the slide, there isn’t a recognizable trait for how snow behaves when conditions are dangerous, Moody said.
“Just skiing it isn’t going to tell you the full story of the season,” Moody said.
As interest in backcountry skiing has recently skyrocketed, Moody has encouraged students to take courses through the UI outdoor program, which is an American Avalanche Association provider.
Classes begin on Dec. 9, with a two-hour introductory avalanche awareness course. On Jan. 29 the UI Outdoor Program will hold an avalanche rescue course, which lasts a full day. On Presidents Day weekend in February there will be a level one avalanche training, which lasts three days.
Sign-ups for the awareness course have already opened, and later classes will open by the end of November.
The bottom line
The exact effect of climate change on skiing can be a slippery slope. While trends generally lean one way, there’s variability within winters, especially with weather patterns.
This year is projected to be a moderate La Niña year, which for the Palouse means a higher likelihood of colder and wetter weather, with greater snowpack for a longer ski season, according to Link.
Although last winter was characterized by moderate La Niña conditions as well. But it only boasted average temperatures and had the driest February through September on record.
In general terms, skiing seasons will become shorter and the best conditions will become less frequent.
But skiing isn’t doomed, Link said. It might just get harder to ski those perfect days of powder.
Cody Roberts can be reached [email protected] or on Twitter @CodyRobReports