Summer Skiing Is Dead

Following up on the post from August 8th (The Death of Summer Skiing), as reported over the weekend by weathertoski, the last operating ski area in the Alps, Passo Stelvio in Italy, closed on Saturday, August 15th.  There are no summer skiing options left in the Alps.  

They suggest this may be the first time there's no (lift served) summer skiing operations in the Alps.  It's likely that applies to the Northern Hemisphere.  Mt. Gassan (Japan) appears to have closed in early July.  Timberline on Mt. Hood appears to have closed on July 19.   I believe late operating resorts in Norway are also closed.  

2026.  The year that summer skiing died. 

The Death of Summer Skiing

Summer skiing used to be a thing in the climate system of the 20th century.  In North America, there used to be skiing on the Palmer Snowfield of Mt. Hood deep into summer.  When I lived in Seattle, we skied there on Labor Day weekend in early September calling it the "Opening Day of Ski Season" since the next winter was coming.  There also used to be skiing deep into July on the Horstman Glacier at Blackcomb in Whistler.  

In the Alps, summer skiing became a thing in the 1970s and by 1985 there were 32 operating glacier skiing resorts.  These didn't necessarily operate all summer, but they did offer warm-season skiing.  As recently as a few years ago there were resorts that operated year round or very late in the summer [Hintertux (Austria), Zermatt (Switzerland), Saas Fee (Switzerland), Passo Stelvio (Italy)] or into portions of July and/or August [Kitzsteinhorn (Austria), Mölltal (Austria), Les 2 Alpes (France), Tignes (France), Val d'Isere (France) and Cervina (Italy)].

But things have changed.  The 2020s have been rough for summer skiing and 2026 has been awful: 

• There is no longer summer skiing on the Horstman Glacier as Blackcomb pulled the plug on that a couple of years ago.
• Timberline closed July 19 due to low snowpack.
• Hintertux closed on July 26.
• Zermatt suspended summer skiing due to "persistently high temperatures, the lack of a night-time cool-down, repeated thunderstorms" on July 31.  
• Saas Fee will suspend summer skiing on 10 August.

It appears that the only ski area that could be operating this year in the Northern Hemisphere after 10 August is Passo Stelvio in Italy.  I've never skied there, but their web cam image from Friday August 7th didn't pique my interest with a near-complete loss of seasonal snow and little in sight but glacier ice and grit.

Although economics and demand can affect resort operations, in recent years the changing climate has increasingly resulted in poor snow conditions, heat waves, high-altitude rainfall, and other factors that have reduced glacial coverage, the persistence of seasonal snowfall, and summer skiing conditions.  

Although there is variability from year to year, the long-term trend is not summer skiing's friend.  

Escape to the Dolomites

During the European heat wave we decided to escape to higher altitudes and spent a long weekend in the Dolomites, basing out of Wolkenstein in Gröden/Selva in Val Gardena, which is about 3 hours from Innsbruck by regional rail and bus.  Wokenstein/Selva is in South Tyrol (Süd Tirol in German) and was part of the Hapsburg Empire and "County of Tyrol" for more than 500 years.  After World War I, South Tyrol was annexed by Italy.  Under Mussolini, there were efforts to "Italianize" the region.  Cities were given Italian names and both German and Italian names are used today.  

Following WWI, South Tyrol has had a complicated relationship with Italy, but today is an autonomous region with considerable self-governing powers.  It is also one of the wealthiest regions of the EU with low poverty rates.  Many people in the region are multilingual, speaking German, Italian, English, and in some cases Ladin, which is still spoken by some families around the Dolomites.  

Wolkenstein/Selva is at 1500 meters, about 1000 meters higher than Innsbruck and while we were there we also observed cooling thunderstorms each afternoon.  It was a bit like hiking in Colorado.  Rise early, bag a summit, and retreat to the valleys by early afternoon. 

A morning summit of Sass da Ciampac with the atmosphere quickly destabilizing over the Sellagroupe.

In the winter, you can do a lift-served ski circuit around the Sellagroupe (pictured above), which is known as the Sellaronda. In the summer, enough lifts are run to enable a mountain bike Sellaronda, which is done most commonly with e-bikes using a day pass that costs 67 euro.  We weren't biking, but we bought the pass and spent a day doing what I called a "Quarter" Sellaronda involving about 15 km hiking and 10 lift rides, going from Wolkenstein to Sass Pordoi and back.  It's a nice way to cover a lot of ground and beats riding the busses.  

Hiking from the top of the Ciampinoi cable car to Passo Sella.  

The village of Canazei from the trail between the Pian Frataces cable car and Passo Pordoi

Piz Boè, the highest point in the Sellagroupe from near the top of the Sass Pordoi cable car

Our route also involved an excursion up the infamous 2-person Forcella cable car, also known as the "coffin lift."

The cable car is described on one web site as a two seater, but that's laughable since there's no sitting in that contraption.  You are just packed in there like a sardine with your partner.  

Getting on and off this thing involves commitment.  It is not a detachable and you have to jump in from the back.  Two lift ops start yelling encouragement to you as the lift approaches and you grab a handle as the lift goes by, spin, and jump in.  Your riding partner is a bit farther down the line and does the same thing a second later.  If you don't move fast enough, the lift ops shove you in.  Then they lock you in for the ride.  Videos were not allowed, but at great risk to personal safety, I was able to smuggle one out of Italy.

The Dolomites are very popular, but there are some areas that are really overwhelmed by the social-media crowd.  One day we decided to do a loop hike from the top of the Col Raiser cable car.  We began by ascending Seceda Alm (alm is pasture in German), whic was covered in flowers, green as Ireland, and offered some otherworldly views.  

Church in Seceda Alm

Sassolungo from Seceda Alm

But the real attraction here are the views of the Odle Group from the Mt. Seceda ridge line.  

It turns out this is probably the most popular trail in the Dolomites with many people taking the Mt. Seceda cable cars to just below the ridge.  A round trip on these is 76 euro, so we avoided them, but it should have clued us in that something was up.  When we got to the top, it was a mass of humanity, Due to overcrowding and littering, there is now a 5 euro charge to access one section of the ridge trail.  I couldn't help but think of the Yogi Berra quote, "nobody goes there anymore it's too crowded." We bypassed the queue and elected to hike elsewhere. 

Lesson learned!

Getting back to funner aspects of the weekend, when we arrived at our guest house there were a lot of ski trophies and photos including a bib from Salt Lake 2002.  It turned out the place was run by a real ski-racing family and the husband, Alan, competed for Italy in the slalom during the 2002 games (sadly a DNF). More recently, their son Max won two golds and one bronze at the 2023 Junior World Championships.  Hopefully they will be returning to Salt Lake in 2034. 

Visiting the Rudolfshütte

A couple of years ago I saw an article in the quarterly newsletter of the Austrian Alpine Club (Österreichischen Alpenverein) about a mountain hotel known as the Rudolfshütte.  The hotel is only accessible via foot or cable car and is at an elevation of 2300 meters.  In the winter, it serves as the center of a ski area.  In the summer, as a center for hiking and mountaineering.  In the article, the photo of the Rudolfshütte was so attractive I swore a vow to visit.  I'm not sure if the photo below, which I snagged from the Austrian Alpine Club web site is the same as was run in the quarterly newsletter, but it illustrates the allure.  

Source: Austrian Alpine Club

We visited the Rudolfshütte today and, as it turns out, we got a real history lesson in addition to mountain views. 

Accessing the cable car to get to the Rudolfshütte involves a drive up the Stubach Valley, which ascends into Austria's Hohe Tauern National Park from Uttendorf, a village in the Pinzgau region.  This road is barely a two lanes, with many switchbacks.  The photo below sadly doesn't do it justice as it makes the road look much wider than it really is.  I kept thinking who the hell would build a ski area out in the middle of nowhere with the only access up a long and winding road like this?  

Then we got to the base of the resort.  Instead of there being a quaint Austrian mountain village, the place was very industrial.  

I learned latter that the Rudofshütte and associated ski area (apparently known as the Weißsee Glacier World) are located at the head of the Stubach Valley, one of the most important for hydropower generation in all of Austria.  There are multiple reservoirs, operated by the Austrian Federal Railways (OBB) for the purposes of electric power generation.  In fact, 20% of the power needed by the railways is generated solely from this valley.  

Then we located the ski resort and cable car, which was a bit of a museum piece.  It was built in 1982!  It must have been a remarkable lift at the time as it was detachable, but I have to admit getting on it in 2026 took a bit of courage. 

Our original plan was to take the two-stage gondola to the Rudolfshütte and do a hike to about 3000 meters, but web cams showed substantial snow cover at that elevation so we went to the middle station an hiked to the Rudolfshütte from there.  It was a cloudy day, but great views were still to be had and we got an introduction to the incredible hydrologic infrastructure operated by OBB in the valley.  

Eventually we arrived at the Rudolfshütte (building to the left in the photo below), which sits above the Weißsee (white lake) reservoir.  

At this point, my head was really spinning.  This is a 200+ bed hotel up at high altitude.  The hiking season is short.  The ski area is hard to access and is a relic from a time forgot.  So I started to do some digging and asked the operator of the guest house we are staying in for a little background.  She gave me a pamphlet that summarizes the history of the hut and ski area.  

The original Rudolfshütte was built in 1874 by what was then the German and Austrian Alpine club.  It really was a hut.  It had two rooms and five mattresses.  In the late 1800s, the development of rail from Salzburg made interest in travel to the Rudolfshütte attractive for tourism.  Rail access would have been to Uttendorf, 17 km away as the crow flies and 27 km by road plus two cable car stages today.  From there to Rudofshütte must have been a hell of an adventure back then.  Nevertheless, enough people visited to warrant expansion to a facility that could house 60 people.  

The road to what is now the base of the cable car was built in 1926, motivated in large part by the need for building hydro power plants.  This enabled for car or bus access to within about a 2.5 hour hike of the Rudolfshütte.  That's 2.5 hours for Austrians.  Probably more like 3 or 4 hours for most of the rest of humanity.  Spring skiing, presumably human powered, also became popular prior to World War II. 

The original Rudolfshütte was located closer to (or maybe under) what is currently the Weißsee reservoir.  That reservoir was built by the Nazis during World War II using forced labor, including prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp who according to the translated documents I have experienced "unspeakable suffering."  The first "ropeways" were built to the Rudolfshütte area during that dark time. 

After World War II the Rudolfshütte was relocated to its present site and it became widely used.  By 1957, the cable car, now operated by OBB, transported 100,000 tourists and the Rudofshütte was a training center for the US Army and Austrian skiers, including Toni Sailer and Pepi Stiegler, both Olympic gold medalists.

It appears that the gondola we rode today was built in 1982.  That was probably a time of great excitement, but the area has subsequently fallen on harder times.  As said in some of the materials I was given, "the economic expectation of the [Austrian] Alpine Club and those of the cable car operators were not fulfilled."  

Currently the Rudolfshütte is owned by an Austrian Hotelier named Wilfried Holleis, who was born in nearby Zell am See.  Holleis has been pushing for controversial expansion of the Rudolfshütte, which was recently approved.  A November 2025 article in the Kronen Zeitung reports:

"According to the hotel, there are too few day skiers. 'This is the only way the hotel and the ski area have a future,' reports a spokesperson for hotelier Wilfried Holleis. The long journey through the valley deters day visitors. Therefore, they are dependent on hotel guests who stay for several nights and use the lifts. The lift facilities alone have been operating at a loss for a long time."

Who knows what the future lies for this unique hotel and ski area, but I appreciate the opportunity to experience it today as it is a fascinating piece of Austrian mountaineering and ski history. 

See https://www.gletscherwelt-weissee.at/fileadmin/content-weissee/Prospekte/RH/Chronik_Rudolfshuette.pdf for more about the history of the Rudolfshütte. 

Climate Change and Nordic Skiing

The vast majority (nearly all) studies examining the impacts of climate change on skiing focus on Alpine skiing resorts.  However, the reality is that Nordic (i.e., cross-country) skiing is far more vulnerable to climate change as anyone who has a long tooth and skis at Mountain Dell or Round Valley has observed.  

The primary reason for this is elevation.  As an example, below is a photo that I took from the summit of the Rangger Köpfl, a 2000-meter peak from which one can see the Wetterstein Alps and Karwendel Alps of Germany and Austria.  South of the Wetterstein Alps and west (left) of the Karwendel Alps sits the Seefelder Plateau, a famous cross country region that hosted the 2019 Nordic World Championships and has about 245 km of trails connecting the villages of Seefeld, Leutasch, Mösern, Reith and Scharnitz.  

With elevations around 1200 meters, the Seefelder Plateau is promoted as a snow-reliable cross country skiing region.  However, this is still an elevation that is quite vulnerable to climate change and lower than the adjoining Rosshütte Alpine ski resort (also pictured) which extends from 1230 to 2064 meters. 

Consistent with the Seefelder Plateau region, Nordic resorts often lie at relatively low elevations, whereas nearby Alpine resorts reach to higher elevations.  To illustrate this, the figure below shows the mean elevation of Alpine (downhill) and Nordic (cross-country) ski areas in the Alps (AT=Austria; DE=Germany; IT=Italy; CH=Switzerland; FR=France; SL = Slovenia.  There is a clear bias to lower elevations for Nordic ski areas that is especially pronounced in the eastern Alps (Austria and Germany).  The bias is not as large in the western and southern Alps where Nordic ski areas have higher elevations, although unlike Alpine ski resorts, there are no Nordic resorts with mean elevations above 2400 meters.  

Source: Schilling et al. (2026)

Nordic resorts are so vulnerable to climate change because negative trends in snowfall and snow cover are largest at lower elevations.  In other words, the snowpack will suffer more at lower elevations than at upper elevations.  

This is happening already.  Schilling et al. (2026) recently used satellite data to examine long-term (1980–2024) and short-term (1999–2024) trends in the percentage of Nordic resort trail kilometers that lie above the snow-line elevation.  Below are the results for the late season (March and April) and full season (November to April).  Circles indicate the long term trend, diamonds the short-term trend, and orange fill indicates that the trends are statistically significant at a 95% confidence level.  Elevation along the x-axis is based on the resort mean elevation.  Long- and short-term trends in the percentage of Nordic resort trail kilometers during the late season are either flat or negative at nearly every resort.  Seasonal trends are also flat or negative at all but a few resorts.  Declines vary by resort, but the largest are generally at lower elevations.

Source: Schilling et al. (2026)

Geographically, large regions with negative trends  in the southwestern Alps of France and Italy and the southeastern Alps of Italy (e.g., Dolomites, etc.).  

Source: Schilling et al. (2026)

For the full season, the average trend was a decline of 1.1% per year in the percentage of Nordic resort trail kilometers above the snow line.  

There are some limitations to this study given it's use of satellite data back to 1979 when overpasses were somewhat infrequent, but in general these results are consistent with what is seen in directly measured snow cover trends from the Alps, with declines in seasonal snow cover duration largest at lower elevations.  

Much like Alpine skiing, Nordic resorts at higher elevations will have a competitive advantage for in the future due to smaller declines in natural snowpack.  This would include places like Alpe di Suisi/Seiser Alm in the Dolomites (around 1800 meters) or the Engadin Valley in Switzerland (also near 1800 meters).  That said, the demands of cross country skiing are such that high elevation is not something that many Nordic skiers might want to do, especially those who live nearer to sea level. 

Snowmaking and farming are becoming more common at some Nordic ski resorts.  On the Seefelder plateau, about 20 km of trail can be covered with artificial snow in Seefeld and another 6 km in Leutasch.  More expansion of such efforts is probably essential in the future at many resorts.  In Utah, Soldier Hollow is now experimenting with snow storage under geotextile fabrics to save snow through the summer for the next season.  

There is still time to save Nordic skiing, but it will require reducing carbon emissions and limiting future global warming.  

Tyrol in Spring

Much like Utah, the Alps offer up a tremendous diversity of recreational opportunities in the spring months due to the large elevation differences and diverse microclimates. 

The Inn Valley and the south-facing slopes of the Nordkette ridge immediately north of Innsbruck are green with just a few patches of snow hanging in the high elevations.  One can get off work and go for a hike to one of several mountain huts or alms on the lower- and mid-elevation slopes of the Nordkette.  Directly above our apartment we can climb about 550 vertical meters to Umbruggler Alm for lunch, dinner, or strudel.  

Similar to the Salt Lake Valley, the views right now are of green valleys and snow capped mountains.  One difference is that things will probably stay green in the low elevations through the summer because it actually rains here.  

The next day I skied at Ischgl, which reaches to about 2800 meters elevation, and is fully interconnected with Samnaun in Switzerland.  Below shows the valley route from the top of the ridge that divides the two resorts down to the village of Samnaun.  

Once the snow softened a bit, we did a good deal of off-piste skiing on the Ischgl side.  This is below the Piz Val Gronda cable car.  I jokingly called this run "Little Snowbird." 

One reason for that is my friend Samu calls this one "Little Alta."

A highlight for the day was skiing down a very long and completely untracked gully that skied like butter.  Spring snow can be wonderful like that.  The bottom though got a little thin.  We slalomed through the rocks and then had to do a mixture of hiking and skiing to get out.  

Ischgl is a hard partying resort with a skiing problem.  At 2300 meters they have a concert stage setup for their Top of the Mountain concerts. 

If you miss Frank at Alta, this might be a good fall back.  I grabbed that photo off the web.  My multi-resort pass is not good on Ischgl concert days, not that I care.   

Source: https://www.top.tirol/news-tourismus/konzertreihe-bringt-ischgl-millionen

Finally, when the knees are cranky, a great thing to do from Innsbruck is take a 40 minute train ride to Seefeld.  The train climbs up the steeply sloped north wall of the Inn Valley and offers up great views.  

You'll find many older Tyroleans on the train as there's a lot of low angle walking in the Seefeld area.  You can walk for many miles if you like or just a few.  There's plenty of views to be had from the open areas around Seefeld.  One of the more famous views is of the Seekirche Catholic Church right on the edge of town.  

Secrets of the Greatest Snow on Earth at the University of Innsbruck

I'm approaching the half-way point of our stay in Tyrol.  One of my responsibilities as a Guest Professor is to present a "public lecture" as a way to introduce myself to the Department of Atmospheric and Cryospheric Sciences as well as the wider University community.  I decided to adapt my "Secrets of the Greatest Snow on Earth" talk to a Tyrolean audience.  

Although the talk had some similarities to the versions I've given in Utah, significant modifications were needed.   The Greatest Snow on Earth slogan is well known in North America, but most people in Innsbruck have never heard of it.  I had to introduce the slogan, and how it is put on everything from web sites to license plates, providing an opportunity for a little humor by imagining what might have happened if Tyrol had come up with it first.   

To introduce everyone to Utah skiing I decided to compare the history of skiing in Austria with Utah. There are some great parallels here.  Austria has a very long and rich history with Alpine skiing, with St. Anton and the Arlberg region known (and marketed) as the "cradle" or birthplace of Alpine skiing.  One reason for this is that Hannes Schneider, who was born in the village of Stuben in the Arlberg, was a pioneering Alpine skier who developed the Arlberg technique there, a system for teaching skiers how to progress from wedge to parallel skiing that revolutionized ski instruction in the early 20th century.  

For comparison, Utah has a very long and rich history with deep-powder skiing, especially at Alta where many people, including the Alf Engen, Dick Durrance, and Junior Bounous were developing the techniques to ski the steep and deep.  Here are a couple of slides discussing these two rich regional ski histories.  

The turnout was great with probably about 100 people attending.  And they really know how to celebrate and make a visitor feel welcome.  After answering questions for about 15 minutes the regional wines and local beer were rolled in and we had a great social hour. 

Much thanks to the Department of Atmospheric and Cryospheric Sciences and the Mountain Regions Research Area for hosting the event.    

Declining Snow and Ice Part II: Future Projections

In the previous post we examined recent trends in snow and ice including glaciers and seasonal snowpack.  Here we look at future projections.  

I use the word projection rather than forecasts because projections explore "what-if" scenarios whereas forecasts try to predict a future outcome.  For climate projections, the primary what if scenarios are often based on future greenhouse gas emissions scenarios or pathways and in some cases socioeconomic pathways.  These include, for example, moderate emissions pathways in which greenhouse gas emissions peak during the mid-21st century, so-called "business as usual" scenarios in which emissions increase through the 21st century, and others.  

These scenarios produce increases in globally average temperature over pre-industrial values.  For instance, the moderate-emissions scenario produces an increase of about 2°C and the high-emissions scenario produces an increase of about 4°C.  These are sometimes referred to as global warming levels (GWL) and I'll be using those for this post.  For a given global warming level, the amount of warming for a region may differ from the global average and in the case of Austria (and Utah) the amount of warming is greater.  

We will start with glaciers in the European Alps based on work presented by Zekollari et al. (2019).  If interested, I have a deeper dive on this topic (see The Fate of Alpine Glaciers).  The graph below presents the recent (prior to 2017) and projected future volume of glacier ice in the Alps, the latter under four scenarios.  One is the committed loss, which is an estimate of the future loss of glacier volume if the climate stabilized around what occurred from 1988-2017.  The others are with an additional levels of global warming.  

Source: Zekollari et al. (2019), with annotations added

Because the Alpine glaciers are currently out of equilibrium with the rapid warming that has occurred in recent decades, they will continue to shrink even if the climate remains unchanged relative to 1988–2017.  Under such a scenario, the volume fraction of glacier ice would decline about 40% from 2017 levels.  Increasing amounts of glacier loss occur for higher global warming levels.  Under high global warming levels, nearly all of the glacier ice in the Alps is gone by 2100 (see red line) with the only glacier remnants remaining in the high terrain region from Mt. Blanc to Zermatt and the Swiss Jungfrau.  

Moving to snowfall, below are estimated changes (from 1981–2010 to 2070–2099) in the water-equivalent of snowfall for the Alpine region (September to May) as a function of elevation under a global warming level of ~2°C and a global warming level of ~4°C.  Similar to recent trends, declines are very much elevation dependent and largest in the lower elevations and smallest in the upper elevations.  For the 1000-1250 m elevation band, the various models call for declines of 15-40% for 2°C of global warming and 40–60% for 4°C of global warming.  Declines are larger at lower elevations and smaller at upper elevations.    

Source: Frei et al. 2018, with annotations added.

Another perspective is provided by trends in the number of days with at least 30 cm of snow on the ground.  The graph below is now for the Austrian Alps, which are a bit colder at a given elevation than the western Alps and the Italian Alps.  Again, the percentage changes are elevation and scenario dependent.  For the 1500-2000 m elevation range, snow cover of at least 30 cm persisted for about 175 days a year.  For 1991-2000, this has declined to about 130.  For a global warming level of 2°C, that drops to about 110 days with additional declines for larger global warming levels.  At upper elevations, the percentage declines are smaller, but there are still declines.  

Source: Formeyer et al. (2025, https://aar2.ccca.ac.at/chapters/1) with annotations added.

Finally, groups have estimated changes in ski resort snow reliability based on projections like those above but also considering changes in snowmaking conditions and projected advances in snowmaking capacity.  In the case of Austria, the regions that see the largest declines in snow reliability, especially under a high-emissions scenario (right figure below), are in eastern Austria (the Austrian States of Lower Austria, Upper Austria, and Styria) and the northern Alpine Rim in western Austria near the German border.  These are areas where ski resorts are at low-to-moderate elevations.  

Source: Steger et al. (2021, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213078020300542) with annotations added.

The highest snow reliability persists in the inner Alps in western Austria near the Italian border where the terrain is high (green ellipse), and in the Arlberg region in western Austria near the border between the Austrian states of Voralberg and Tyrol (red ellipse). In the case of the former, there are several resorts with substantial terrain above 2000 meters (Kaunertal, Pitztal, Sölden, Obergurgl, Ischgl), whereas the latter is currently Austria's snowiest region and will likely maintain some level of snow reliability even as a greater fraction of wintertime precipitation falls as rain instead of snow.  This does not mean those regions will not see declines in natural snow reliability and hours with favorable snowmaking conditions, but that they are more resilient to warming given their elevation or more abundant natural snowfall.  Everywhere will experience the pain of global warming, but the "competitive advantages" of these regions will increase with time as other regions suffer more.

We will see similar effects in Utah as the high-elevation, snow-abundant terrain around Little Cottonwood Canyon suffers less than lower elevation regions in the Wasatch.  High elevation (and north facing) resorts like Alta and Snowbird will see an increasing competitive advantage in the future, as was evident this past season.  

What I takeaway from this and other research is that there still will be snow and snowstorms in the future, although we can expect downward trends in snowfall and snow-cover duration in most regions. The size of the decline, however, is strongly dependent on the amount of warming, which is tied to future greenhouse gas emissions.  Thus, the fate of snow and skiing are ultimately in our hands.  

Declining Snow and Ice Part I: Recent Trends

One of the things I'm doing while on sabbatical in Austria is revisiting our current knowledge of recent changes and projected future changes to Earth's cryosphere (the frozen water part of the Earth system including ice sheets, glaciers, and snow) and integratig this information into course materials and public talks.  Austria is a good place to do this because there is a great awareness and convern about changes to glaciers and snow here and winter tourism is a significant portion of their economy (as much as 6% of their GDP based on some estimates).  As a result, there's a great deal of useful information concerning changes to snow and its impacts on winter sports and tourism.  

But before taking a close look at Austria, let's take a step back and look at the big picture.  Globally averaged temperatures have increased about 1.4°C/2.5°F above pre-industrial levels and the past three calendar years (2023–2025) were the warmest on record.  In response, the "great melt" has begun, with declines in the mass of the Greenland Ice Sheet, Antarctic Ice Sheet, and glaciers.   

Since the late 1970s, the Greenland Ice Sheet has been losing mass, corresponding to about 18 mm (0.7") of sea-level rise.  

Source: https://climate.copernicus.eu/climate-indicators/ice-sheets 

Similarly, the Antarctic Ice Sheet has been losing mass, amounting in total to about 14 mm (0.55") of sea level rise. The graph below includes mass changes for three regions of the Antarctic Ice Sheet (East Antarctica, West Antarctica, and the Antarctic Penninsula, as well as the cumulative total for the entire continent.  

Source: https://climate.copernicus.eu/climate-indicators/ice-sheets 

Finally, glaciers have lost 9000 Gigatonnes of mass, the equivalent of another 27 mm (1 inch) of sea leel rise.  

Source: https://climate.copernicus.eu/climate-indicators/glaciers

These recent changes cannot be explained by a "rebound" from the Little Ice Age, a period of regional cooling, especially in the North Atlantic region.  Since the 1990s, the loss of land ice has been driven by human-caused global warming.  Additionally, although the contributions to sea level rise may seem small so far, they are an ominous harbinger of things to come. 

Zooming into Austria, temperatures are increasing faster than the global average and have increased 3.1°C/5.6°F since the pre-industrial period.  

Source: https://aar2.ccca.ac.at/technical-summary

The impacts on snow and ice here are very apparent, with the recently released Second Austrian Assessment Report on Climate Change (AAR2) concluding that "all glaciers in Austria have been losing mass and shrinking at an accelerating rate in recent years."  That's somewhat cautious wording.  Instead of shrinkage, the word disintegration is being used increasingly to describe the fracturing and collapsing of some glaciers.  

Austria has an extensive network of snow observations.  They reveal elevation-dependent trends in snow cover with the larget percentage declines in the lower elevations and smallest at higher elevations.  Below are the trends at Austrian stations from 1961–2021 showing statistically significant declines at most stations that increase with decreasing elevation below about 1750 meters.  

Source: Steenburgh (2023, based on data provided by Marc Olefs, Geosphere)

Most Austrian ski resorts have base elevations below 1750 meters and the vast majority below 1500 meters.  

In a coming post, we will look at projections for the future and expected impacts on snow and skiing.  

Austria's "Highest" Ski Resort

Sometime in early April after a day of skiing I discovered that both of my ski boots had developed cracks more than 1 cm in length in their upper cuff.  Not good.  It's the end of the season and I went around town looking for replacement boots, to no avail.  Then I walked into Sport Wolf, a little outside of the main core of Innsbruck. 

The owner, Hansjörg, took great interest in my situation.  He contacted Salomon, who provided me a 40% discount on a new pair (my old boots were at least 6 seasons old and well outside of warranty).  A couple days later they arrived and after an initial fitting at Sport Wolf I'm back in business.  Much thanks to Hansjörg for outstanding service.  

I decided that I should get a couple of hours of skiing in the boots and decided to go to Kuhtai for a few laps on Friday.  It was the closest resort to Innsbruck that is still open and can be reached by bus in about an hour.  

Kuhtai markets itself as Austria's highest ski resort at 2,020 meters elevation.  

There are, however, three caveats to that claim.  First, their highest lift elevation is 2,520 meters, and there are many Austrian ski areas that exceed that.  Second, they actually have lifts that go below 2,020 meters, including one, the Kaiserbahn, which starts at 1,938 meters.  Finally, there are Austrian resorts with base elevations above 2,020 meters (Pitztal Glacier, Kaunertal Glacier, and Mölltal Glacier).  I guess the distinction is that the village of Kühtai sits at 2,020 meters and perhaps that is what is meant by resort.  

Kühtai sits in an east-west oriented mountain pass between the Sellrain Valley to the east and the Neder Valley to the west.  Given it's altitude, it is essentially treeless.  It has south facing terrain on the north side of the pass and north facing terrain on the south side.  

Coverage on Friday was good on for the north-facing terrain, but the south-facing terrain was nearly snow free below about 2200 meters except along trails with snowmaking.  

Looking north to the south-facing side of Kühtai

Looking south to the north-facing side of Kütai

I was told Eileen Gu was was skiing here a couple of weeks ago, but on this day, there were only a few diehards and one Utahn who was testing his ski boots, which fit well.  Hopefully I have a few more days of skiing before this season is over. 

Last Day "am Arlberg"

When we arrived in Innsbruck in late February, I purchased a "Freizeit Ticket", an IKON-like seasons pass good for many resorts in the Innsbruck area.  It's more than an IKON though because you can use it on many cable cars in the summer, for admission to some tourist spots, and for access to the local swimming pool.  When I purchased it, the cashier said to me "you realize that the coverage period is half over." I just smiled and said, "it won't be a problem."  

The Freizeit includes three days of skiing at the Arlberg.  Yesterday I burned my last, making it my last day "am Arlberg" (on the Arlberg).  The Arlberg is actually one of the easiest resorts to access from Innsbruck because it lies along the main train line to Bregenz and Zurich and thus there is quasi-hourly service on OBB "rail jet" trains that make limited stops.  The rail jet is not high speed, but on the track between Innsbruck and Imst-Pitztal it hits speeds of 150 to 160 km/hr (90-96 mph).  

After about an hour an ten minutes, you arrive in St. Anton where it is a five minute walk to several lifts. Snow was scant at valley level yesterday so the view leaving the station was not especially pretty!

Rather than do a "Run of Fame" day skiing from valley to valley, I decided to focus on a few areas that I wanted more time at and that get a little less skier traffic.  I started though with a run down the Arlberg Kandahar Rennen, basically the route used for World Cup DH and SG races.  It has a south and southeast aspect and given the spring conditions, was the first place to soften up for the day.  I caught an early train and had fresh corduroy.  

It's easy to carve big arcs down a run like that, but running it full gas would be terrifying.  The course oscillates between steeper sections and gliding sections and I tried to imagine transitioning into the latter at speeds of around 80 mph.  Some of those sections were even narrower than the one below.  

I then worked my way over to Stuben, a village and ski area that is typically skipped by the Run of Fame crowd. On this warm spring day, it has the advantage of being north facing, although given the early hour I skied over the back side and started on its one south facing lift, the Albonagrat double chair.  The terrain was a bit like a mini Mineral Basin at Snowbird.

The front (north-facing) side of Stuben drops about 3000 vertical feet to the village.

The terrain around Stuben is a bit unusual.  The upper mountain has some attractive freeride terrain.  

There are also some nice cruisers on the upper half (hard to see in the above), but the bottom half terrain is a bit convoluted and wavy.  There are serpentine pistes that wind their way to the base through this terrain, although I didn't take any photos.  

After lunch, I worked my way back to St. Anton.  Across the valley from St. Anton is a hidden ski area called Rendl.  There is a gondola that ascends from St. Anton to it, but you really can't see any of the terrain from town.  It's a hidden gem in many ways with a lot of open, freeride terrain and even a small terrain park if you're into that kind of thing.  

The southern portion of the resort has three fixed-grip doubles and a real old-school feel, which is very soothing given the industrial-scale lifts the cover most of the Arlberg.  Below are views looking up the Riffelbahn I and then down the Riffelbahn II which reaches just over 2600 meters.

It will be a shame when these lifts are replaced by the inevitable high-speed six pack.  

To conclude the day, I got a final thighburner back into town.  The descent into town is via a west and north facing route, but the south-facing terrain acros the valley above St. Anton is looking pretty baked.  

The Arlberg gets a lot of snow by Alpine standards, but has an abundance of south and west facing terrain and it pays the price, especially in a low snow year with warmth and abundant sunshine.