Declining snowfall, AI, UBI and the future of skiing…

S

snowbird surfer

Member
Briefly, how does one plan for the following scenario:

AI commodifies cognition
30-50% of cognitive work is eliminated
UBI becomes a reality in developed economies
Climate change continues apace with lower snowfall totals and a greater share of precipitation as rain
Abundance (time/resources) and powder scarcity collide

Now what?

Are we facing a LCC scenario everywhere? That is, an over crowded powder frenzy across the alps? In this scenario, what European locations offer the best experience with north facing high elevation powder potential and barriers that limit access and therefore result in relatively lower skier density? If feasible, where should one purchase? Or will we all be renting sprinters and following storms?

Practical advice is very much appreciated!
 
I suggest you read a Vanat Report www.vanat.ch. European skier visitation has been stagnant for decades due to low birth rates and demographic trends. 2022 report is downloadable. Later reports require payment.

There are marginal low altitude places in Europe that won’t last. ChrisC saw some of those around Gstaad recently.

I have analyzed North America climate impacts extensively. Search on FTO for my FWSA presentation in June 2025.

I apologize when not including links when on my phone, which will be most of the time before I get home from Spain Aug. 19.

We just had a very nice day in Biarritz which is maybe 100 miles south of the big fire near Bordeaux. Smoke is not blowing our direction; we actually had a bit of rain early this morning and more in the afternoon in Bilbao two days ago. Countryside is green around here and there’s some humidity, so not the extreme summer dry climate farther south. Next 3 days are in the Pyrenees.
 
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snowbird surfer said:
Are we facing a LCC scenario everywhere? That is, an over crowded powder frenzy across the alps?
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How many decades in the future with rampant climate change are you talking about where only the ski areas/resorts at the highest elevation are still operating?

what European locations offer the best experience with north facing high elevation powder potential
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We've all had moments at industrial resorts where the groomed autobahns back to major lifts are like the BQE at rush hour but offpiste? Has anyone here ever faced a LCC-level offpiste goatf**k in the Alps or anything even remotely close to it requiring
snowbird surfer said:
barriers that limit access and therefore result in relatively lower skier density?
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jamesdeluxe said:
How many decades in the future with rampant climate change are you talking about
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Many when you realize the rate is around 0.2C per decade and a 1C temperature increase raises the average snow line 500 feet. Thus the example I cited that it would take a 3C increase for Mammoth to get the proportion of rain that Palisades gets now.
 
Personally, I'm going to deal with climate change by dying, because I don't see it being a show stopper by the time I croak during the next couple of decades. Over the last dozen years I've mostly skied in UT and primarily at Snowbird. I feel pretty good that if anywhere is going to continue to have good skiing it will be Utah. As a retired person, I can cherry pick my days and times for skiing in LCC and I still find 85% of winter days to be very manageable and fun there. And be careful what you wish for, because in the extremely snowy, record year of 2023 traffic and crowds were terrible. You can't have your cake and eat it too, at least not on great ski terrain 35 minutes from a major airport :-)
Additionally, before Utah I skied for 50 years in the mid-Atlantic US and I felt that advancements in snowmaking kept pace with any decreases in natural snowfall there. In fact, if anything, the quality of ski surfaces became better and more consistent/predictable than decades ago in that part of the country.
 
Stuart has the same perspective as JimK from growing up in the Midwest and now living in NYC. It’s all about snowmaking improvements. I have to remind these people that large western ski areas rarely have more that a quarter of acreage under snowmaking and minimal advanced/expert terrain.

I will say that in places like LCC not only JimK but also his son will have little concern about long term snow conditions in their lifetimes.
 
Tony Crocker said:
Stuart has the same perspective as JimK from growing up in the Midwest and now living in NYC. It’s all about snowmaking improvements. I have to remind these people that large western ski areas rarely have more that a quarter of acreage under snowmaking and minimal advanced/expert terrain.

I will say that in places like LCC not only JimK but also his son will have little concern about long term snow conditions in their lifetimes.
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Agree that in the west snowmaking is not a factor for advanced/expert terrain. Increased snowmaking at places like Alta, Taos, or Big Sky is focused on early season and making sure that travelers who are constrained to holiday periods can have a reasonably good time between late December and late January. My understanding is that the snowmaking teams at destination resorts in the Rockies disband by early January. Improvements in snowmaking infrastructure have been noticeable over the last decade.

Colorado ski terrain is at much higher elevation than Utah. Plenty of snowmaking for groomed trails at Ikon/Epic resorts. Wolf Creek uses snowmaking near the base and on a few of top-to-bottom groomers (green, blue) in order to make beginners and intermediates happier before the base on the lower mountain is built up. Monarch is continuing with the idea of natural snow only, as is Ski Cooper. Both are working hard to expand terrain. Presumably their leaders believe it will keep snowing enough in the next 2-3 decades.

Ski resorts that remained viable in the southeast into the 21st century all have had 100% snowmaking coverage for decades. Those in NC started with 100% snowmaking in the 1950s or 1960s. Poaching "off-piste" terrain does happen during the rare blizzard in NC, but is generally frowned upon by NC ski patrollers. A bit later in VA with the opening of Massanutten and Wintergreen in the 1970s. WV resorts depend heavily on snowmaking, however there is advanced terrain that is only open after a big snowstorm. Skiing trees at Canaan Valley or Timberline has been a reason for people to make the drive from Pittsburgh or DC/NoVA since the 1970s. Snowshoe also dates from the 1970s, with Intrawest buying it and buiding the current "village" in 1995. Adding glades has been of interest in recent years.
 
Tony et al sorted out my concerns regarding declining snowfall. But what about AI disruption, abundance, and UBI? What will this mean for skier density in prime, powder locations? Will more learn to ski and then chase powder? If so, untracked powder turns will become very scarce and therefore expensive! Alternatively, leisure will increasingly be spent with gummies, sex robots or plugged into the matrix. The next generation may forego the mountains in favor of digital soma and surrender their physicality to the false comfort of spacial computing.

If forced to make a prediction, I would expect significantly more pressure on the mountain that provide powder turns over the next 15 years as a result of ever increasing remote work, followed by a steady decline in total skier days due to the effects of cratering birth rates and digital dopamine addition.
 
snowbird surfer said:
Tony et al sorted out my concerns regarding declining snowfall. But what about AI disruption, abundance, and UBI? What will this mean for skier density in prime, powder locations? Will more learn to ski and then chase powder? If so, untracked powder turns will become very scarce and therefore expensive! Alternatively, leisure will increasingly be spent with gummies, sex robots or plugged into the matrix. The next generation may forego the mountains in favor of digital soma and surrender their physicality to the false comfort of spacial computing.

If forced to make a prediction, I would expect significantly more pressure on the mountain that provide powder turns over the next 15 years as a result of ever increasing remote work, followed by a steady decline in total skier days due to the effects of cratering birth rates and digital dopamine addition.
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Elon says there will be no need to save for retirement in the coming age of abundance. Perhaps he’ll build us an AI powered powder producer?
I’ll believe Elon’s fantasies once I see him gift away his wealth.
 
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