Almost all ski event organizers would like to know and say long in advance of the event that they can absolutely guarantee sufficient and safe snow coverage for their competition courses. But, due to challenging weather and climate the last few years, very few organizers can with ease do this anymore.  Snow guarantee has become an increasingly important element in event and venue planning and budgeting.  This website will in the next few articles explore how different organizers have in the past and are currently solving the challenge.

To be able to host a World Cup, World Championship and Olympic & Paralympic Games, the organizer or venue must have or install an efficient snowmaking system or/and provide sufficient snow storage that can be proven to provide enough snow to cover the homologated /certified competition courses (called Field of Play in the Olympic lingo). The last known organizer that got away without having this was the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Organizer in Vancouver who could provide 30 years’ records of snow-depth that showed an average depth of 2.62 meter snow on the Cross-Country and Biathlon stadiums during the Games time in February. The Games were held on 1.5 meter deep natural snow.

Most organizers of high-level ski events today have some kind of traditional snowmaking system in place.  This consists of snow fans or/and snow lances that create mounts of snow along the competition courses or hills or that are created in a central location and transported out or on to the courses/hills.  An increasing number of venues are now supplementing their traditional snowmaking system with snow collected at the end of the last season and stored over the summer.

There are however a few other ways of guaranteeing or providing snow to ski on.  Remember, snow is frozen water, and several venues and event organizers have explored and are using creative methods for their events.  We will cover some of these in the next articles.

This web-site and Snow for the Future are partnering with the venue and organizer for the 2025 Nordic World Skiing Championship in Trondheim, Norway in creating a plan for how to guarantee snow for this low-altitude venue.  In the next years leading up to the Championship, we will cover the details of the plan as well as how it was implemented.