Following of the cancelation of the Freeride World Tour finals due to poor conditions, a collective of European ski resorts has announced an ambitious deal to airlift as much as 100 inches of snow from resorts across Colorado, Utah and California early as next winter.
Verbier, the host of the finals since the tour was founded, is joined in the budget busting venture by other iconic ski destinations, including Chamonix, Zermatt, and St Anton. Europe’s premier resorts have suffered record-low snowfall this past winter, with some areas barely tipping the needle past 100 inches of total snow for the season.
Nicholas Hale-Woods of the Freeride World Tour describes the plan as "essential for the future of the freeriding in Europe and that of the other FIS events too". When the environmental impact of the proposals was raised at the press briefing, he went on to argue that "either we fly in the snow, or we fly all skiers the other way. The planes will be flying with snow or without".
With details of the plan to be finalized, a United States government official has gone on record, stating that the export of snow was essential to fight “the rise of left-wing climate change activists in our sister nations” going on to liken the operation to the Berlin Air Bridge post-war.
While the move has been greeted with much jubilation by European skiers, who agree they would have to flying to the US to enjoy the snow, so the planes would be flying anyway, the US’s East Coast resorts are outraged. A group of resorts in Vermont and Maine will be lobbying Congress this week in effort to cancel the plan and ‘Keep American Snow American’.
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