Going Downhill Fast: And Other Stories From Skiing's Extremes

Skiing and snowboarding have many aspects that are rightly considered fringe or extreme, including: jumping the length of nearly three football fields, off 300-foot cliffs and 40 feet above super-pipes; ascending 8,000-meter mountains; going to the North and South poles; exploring Yellowstone's thermals, geysers and frozen waterfalls; skimming across ponds and lakes; being pulled behind horses, cars, snowmobiles, reindeer and airplanes; competing in Winter X Games; racking up massive numbers of vertical feet; going over 160 miles an hour on the tops of cars; and racing downhill on snow at speeds over 150 miles per hour. The weather that makes skiing/boarding possible can produce snow so deep you need snorkels to ride in it, roads and lifts can be closed for days, and entire towns get buried. It can help produce avalanches that destroy villages and hotels and kill hundreds. And riding the lifts that serve ski slopes can be even more dangerous than the sports itself, when cablecars crash due to airplanes cutting their cables; chairlifts break down and riders have to be evacuated; gondolas and chairs start spinning backwards and ejecting riders; or funiculars catch fire inside of mountains. This book provides compelling stories about all of these things and more, including the histories of how given competitions and stunts have developed, and who did what first, and when, along with who the world record holders are today in a wide variety of them. It also offers context for some of skiing's worse tragedies, along with the ways in which future ones are being protected against and can be avoided. And it offers an in-depth look at weather patterns around the globe, which resorts and regions get the most snow and why, and how ski areas respond to the the kind of major storms that are the stuff of every skier's dreams. And every resort's nightmares. Along with gripping behind-the-scenes stories about the whole range of extremes that skiing and boarding encompass, comes a trove of reference information and facts never assembled in one place before, guaranteed to settle bar bets and counter some of the online misinformation that's rampant after every major weather event, avalanche, lift accident or new world record. Jay Cowan has been skiing all over the world since he was two and writing about it in most of the major ski publications in the U.S. for over 40 years and has been the recipient of multiple awards for his work.