Can Whistler Save Summer Skiing?
Although the glacier was open as usual this summer the lack of snow was obvious.
PhotoTinaGeisel
Very few sports rely so heavily on mother nature’s helping hand when compared to skiing.
It can sometimes be hard to really see the effects of rising temperatures.
For skiers this was great news.
I began by asking Arthur what he had seen changing on the glacier over the years.
“Glaciers are one of the most sensitive ecosystems to temperature change, they are really natures thermometer.
Tom:“Has there been a rise in glacier reduction in the last 5 to 10 years?”
Arthur:“No its actually slowed down.
“To begin we are placing 5 guns at the top of the glacier in the accumulation zone.
Work began on the glacier as soon as the summer ski season wrapped up in late July.
Tom: “So this first season is more of a test for a bigger plan?”
Arthur:“Well we want to verify the production per gun.
You put a weather tower up and study the data.
If its appropriate you put one turbine up study it for a year then go from there.”
Arthur:“Well it could be done in a year.
If we get very positive results potentially we could put the entire system in next summer.
So it would seem we could be seeing a full snow making project very soon if things go well.
Although not replacing snow they have a much smaller environmental impact when compared to snow making.
You would need to remove the covering everyday before skiers arrived and then recover the snow every evening.
Another problem is the covering freezes to the ice making the job of removing it even harder.
So although it may prevent some melting it would not allow us to continue offering summer skiing.”
If you have skied the glacier before you’re free to probably understand the issue.
Operations need to adapt, whatever that means.
Maybe with a couple of wind turbines we could potentially match the energy consumption.
Closing the energy consumption loop could the final step in this project.”
It is renewable energy sources like this which could help Whistler and other resorts lower their overall energy consumption.
In the coming years I think there will be a few resorts asking themselves these types of questions.
If temperatures continue to rise then resorts may become even more reliant on snow making.
The loss of summer skiing is of course not the only consequence of loosing the glacier.
So overall what could all this actually mean?
Could we perhaps see year round skiing in the future?
But it becomes an economic question and also takes us back to the environmental implications.”
We are definitely intervening with the glacier, we are farming snow.
A farmer would not over fertilize a field or use too much water and we are no different.”
Hopefully we will be back to seeing conditions like these from 2007 again soon.
This is an ambitious project but one that does seem to have been well thought out.
Thanks to Arthur for taking the time to answer my questions.
