Top Five Fridays: July 21, 2023
Lead Image: What could be better than mid summer skiing? If you’re like us, the clear answer here is, “nothing.” With Mammoth announcing a tentative closing date of August 6th, you’ve still got a couple of weeks to make your wildest dreams come true! Image: Mammoth Mountain on Facebook
#1: NOAA Has Officially Released Their 2023-20234 Winter Forecast:
Alongside this forecast comes a number of these graphical depictions. In general, the consensus is either “too hard to call,” or “slightly warmer and wetter than usual.” To view this image at full size, click here.
Hello, and welcome to Top Five Fridays, the June 21, 2023 edition! This week we’ve got a bonafide grab bag of news, most of which seems to focus on stories surrounding the topic of skiing rather than the sport itself. Take for example our first highlight this week: NOAA has just released their highly anticipated 2023-2024 Winter Forecast. We don’t know about you, but after last season, we were feeling a bit more anxious than usual to see this year’s long range forecast. Now that it’s out, let’s take a look at what meteorologists think might be in store for the season ahead.
As you might recall, it was at about this time last year that we shared the news that last season was expected to mark a rare “triple dip La Niña” event, in which La Niña is present for the third consecutive season. While the first two iterations in that series led to minimal results for much of the West, the third session delivered in a massive way for ski areas in California, Utah, and Colorado that found themselves locked into the atmospheric river coming off the Pacific. For the rest of us though, things felt particularly dry for much of the season as that same river kept new systems from being created in other regions. With all of that in mind, the overarching highlight of this season’s forecast is that La Niña is gone, and in its place we’ll be experiencing an El Niño winter.
Looking at the different forecasting models created by NOAA for this announcement, there’s a range of possible outcomes in terms of what that means for both temperature and precipitation. In general though, the consensus is that for the midsection of America, there’s an equal chance for both warmer and colder, as well as dryer and wetter conditions. In other words, it’s a coin toss. To the North, NOAA is predicting a slightly higher chance of warmer and dryer weather, although it should be noted that even this prediction isn’t particularly strong. In other words, while things might be dryer and warmer than usual in the North, it’s far from a guarantee. In fact, looking at a diagram of how El Niño tends to set up, it’s easy to see an outcome in which the Northeast could actually have an exceptional winter, should the polar jet become fixed in a position that brings cool, moist air to New England. Of course, as is always the case with weather predictions, we’ll only really know how this all plays out once it’s in the past. For now, check out the full report from NOAA here, or their accompanying prediction visuals here.
#2: Mammoth Mountain Announces Plans to Operate Through August 6th:
A couple of skiers enjoying late summer turns at Mammoth Mountain. If you’re itching to get out there, you officially have until August 6th to make it happen! Image: Mammoth Mountain on Facebook
In tangential news this week, Mammoth Mountain has announced plans to remain in operation through August 6th! This comes of course as a direct result of the aforementioned La Niña induced atmospheric rivers that dumped record setting 715” at their main lodge this winter. Now, with that insane snowpack, Mammoth has announced that they’ll be open through August 6th, marking just the third time in their history that they’ve been able to stay open into August. For those at home who are wondering, Mammoth started their season on November 11th, 2022, meaning their season will be 268 days long should everything go to plan. It also means that if the resort is able to open at approximately the same time this year, there will only be approximately 100 days in which it won’t be able to offer skiing or riding. For a resort that isn’t located on a glacier, that’s pretty incredible. Anyways, that’s really it for this highlight! If you’ve been looking for the extra motivation to get yourself out to Mammoth for some summer skiing, perhaps this can be the push you needed! Be sure to follow their accounts on Facebook and Instagram to stay up to date with the latest news though, as conditions and plans are subject to change.
#3: In a Bit of a Plot Twist, France Emerges As Last Minute Contender to Host 2030 Winter Olympics:
This week, France announced intentions to submit a bid to host the 2030 Winter Olympics. With Paris set to host the 2024 Summer Olympics, it would make for two rounds of hosting duties within a 6 year period. Image: Official Olympics Website
Hot on the heels of news we shared two weeks ago, in which Sweden had suddenly emerged as the presumed host of the 2030 Winter Olympics after nine failed bid attempts, we learned victory may not be such a sure thing for Sweden afterall. This week, the France Olympic and Paralympic committees announced plans to submit a bid for the games as well. Joining these committees in the announcement were representatives from the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur regions, which are the two most southeastern regions in France, bordering Switzerland and Italy along the French alps. While specific details haven’t been shared in regards to logistics of the games, it’s believed that the bid will incorporate the usage of venues from the 1992 Albertville Games, which is located in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. At present, the official bid is expected to be submitted by the end of September.
In addition to hoping to host the 2030 Winter Games, France is also set to host the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. Having also hosted the Winter Olympics in 1992, it’ll be interesting to see how much of a factor recency will be in the IOC’s decision making process. It is known that they generally try to avoid giving hosting duties to the same nation twice in a row, which is why the United States’ Salt Lake City Bid has been pushed back to 2034 to avoid conflict with the 2028 Las Angeles Games. But, will twice in six years matter to the committee? A decision here could set a precedent for the IOC’s decision regarding Salt Lake City’s future bid, following Los Angeles in the same period of time. Of course, there are other considerations as well. The IOC has also increased its focus recently on a country’s ability to use existing structures to play host so as to avoid economic and environmental challenges associated with building entirely new venues. In this sudden head to head competition, both nations have the access to existing venues, with the 1992 Albertville Games assisting France’s bid, and Sweden utilizing facilities in Latavia to support theirs. At the moment, Sweden does seem to have an edge here as they’ve been in direct discussions with the IOC, but it’s ultimately who will earn hosting duties right up until the decision is made. For what it’s worth, that is expected to happen sometime between this Fall, and the 2024 Paris games. With France’s bid expected to come in September, our guess is that a final decision won’t be made until late October at the very latest. When one is made, we’ll be sure to keep you updated!
#4: Meet Rad Smith: The Man Taking the Torch (Paintbrush) From Legendary Ski Trail Map Maker, James Niehues:
A shot from the Montpelier Farmers Market showing the extent of flooding in our state capital. This scene played out in numerous towns across our state this week. Image: Big Sky on Instagram
Finally, we round out this week’s news with an excellent highlight of Rad Smith, brought to us by SkiMag.com. Before we dive in, let’s quickly revisit some history. For many, many years the premier name in trail map painting was James Niehues- an artist who painted countless ski resorts of all sizes. Then, in October of 2021, Niehues announced that he was retiring from ski trail map making, deciding to finally refocus his endeavors on landscapes of national parks. In his wake, there was a massive void that many assumed could never be filled. What we didn’t know at the time, and actually learned just this week, is that Niehues had been training a protégé over the course of the last several years. That protégé is Rad Smith, and with his first solo trail maps entering the world, he’s officially taken the reins.
In the piece from Ski Mag this week, we learn quite a bit about Smith, his background, and his hopes for the future. First, let’s talk about Smith. Prior to working with Niehues, Smith was a digital artist, specializing in maps and landscapes. When he first heard that Niehues was considering retirement back in 2015, but wasn’t aware of anyone who could take over for him, Smith reached out to Niehues via Email. After somewhat unexpectedly receiving a response, the two met up, and before long Smith became something of an apprentice, with Niehues teaching him all of the tricks of the trade that he’d come across during his career. One of the more interesting parts of this story is the fact that Smith’s initial plan was to build upon Niehues’s work by bringing map making into the digital world. He foresaw a number of ways in which technology could help accelerate the process and make it more exact. After working alongside Niehues and struggling to recreate his work via computer though, Smith determined that hand painting the maps really is the way to go. So, shortly into his apprenticeship, Smith abandoned his computer, picked up the paintbrush, and hasn’t looked back.
Today, Smith has officially taken over for Niehues, having unveiled a summer trail map for Big Sky just days ago. In addition to this significant commission, he’s also hard at work, producing a new trail map for Keystone resort, which is adding the Bergman Bowl to its offering this season. As such, a new map was needed, and it’s one that was no small task. With all of its different peaks and terrain, finding a way to show the vast, complex trail network in a compact two dimensional space proved to be difficult. In Smith’s words, “the challenge with such a big area is fitting all of that into one image and also still giving that sense of grandeur.” Yet, his training has served him well. As a result of his work with Niehues, the project is going off without a hitch, and is set to be debuted in time for this 2023-2024 winter season. When it’s released, it’ll mark not only the introduction of brand new terrain for Keystone, but also the introduction of Rad Smith to the world of ski resort trail maps. If Smith truly looks to carry on Niehues’s legacy, then we’re excited to see all of his work over the next thirty years. No pressure though, Rad. To learn more about this story, as well as Keystone’s new terrain, check out this article from SkiMag.com.