Skiing and Climate Change

How has Prospect already changed? What changes do people foresee coming down the road? How will Prospect adapt? Is snowmaking a good idea? Will we be able to continue skiing in a warming world? Why? How?

The first track (“Prospect and Climate Change”) contains the thoughts, fears, hopes, and inner struggles of the interviewees on the intersection of climate change and skiing, specifically at Prospect. Below are some highlighted quotes from the audio track, tagged with their times:

0:20 “We are challenged and will continue to be challenged by the lack of snow.”

1:19 “Next year, are we going to have another 60˚ winter?”

2:22 “Climate change is the issue of the day.”

3:50 “If I can’t make that adjustment to my lifestyle, how can anyone else make that adjustment?”

5:15 “What is a bad year now might be the norm 50 years from now.”

6:17 “You can’t give up.”

7:12 “If in 50 years, there is virtually no natural snow, I’d have a hard time imagining continuing to do it.”

9:35 “Probably the most important thing right now people can do is dare to not look away.”

10:08 “It doesn’t mean we have to give up skiing, but we may have to adjust it.”

10:50 “The second issue of the day is how do we treat each other?”

11:19 “It may be we don’t stop this world from going off its axis…but we need to find ways to be compassionate.”

Because snowmaking is such a big subject within the cross country ski community in general and especially at Prospect right now, the second track (“Snowmaking at Prospect”) is devoted to talking about the future of snowmaking at Prospect. Again, here are some highlighted quotes from the audio tagged with their time in the track:

1:05 “I have never skied there and thought this place feels different. I’ve thought, boy, I’m happy they have snowmaking because this is the only trail open on the whole mountain.”

1:20 “It’s funny to think we’re promoting something artificial.”

1:39 “The bigger dilemma is the carbon footprint.”

2:06 “There’s also a problem that is we keep finding ways to sustain snow in a few locations, are we denying what’s happening.”

2:53 “My hunch is a relatively small investment of money and carbon to make skiing available for many more decades would be good.”

3:31 “It’s deciding to entertain ourselves but our kids won’t have the same world.”