Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing whereby skiers traverse snow-covered terrain without use of ski lifts or other assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreational activity; however, some still use it as a means of transportation. Variants of cross-country skiing are adapted to a range of terrain which spans unimproved, sometimes mountainous terrain to groomed courses that are specifically designed for the sport.
Skiing is the use of skis to glide on snow. Variations of purpose include basic transport, a recreational activity, or a competitive winter sport. Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and the International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS).
Snowboarding is a recreational and competitive activity that involves descending a snow-covered surface while standing on a snowboard that is almost always attached to a rider's feet. It features in the Winter Olympic Games and Winter Paralympic Games.
Alpine skiing, or downhill skiing, is the pastime of sliding down snow-covered slopes on skis with fixed-heel bindings, unlike other types of skiing, which use skis with free-heel bindings. Whether for recreation or for sport, it is typically practiced at ski resorts, which provide such services as ski lifts, artificial snow making, snow grooming, restaurants, and ski patrol.
A ski resort is a resort developed for skiing, snowboarding, and other winter sports. In Europe, most ski resorts are towns or villages in or adjacent to a ski area – a mountainous area with pistes and a ski lift system. In North America, it is more common for ski areas to exist well away from towns, so ski resorts usually are destination resorts, often purpose-built and self-contained, where skiing is the main activity.
Obertauern is a tourist destination which is located in the Radstädter Tauern in the Salzburger Land of Austria. The winter sports resort is separated in two communities: Tweng and Untertauern.
Les Trois Vallées is a ski region in the Tarentaise Valley in the Savoie department of Southeastern France, to the south of the town of Moûtiers, partly in Vanoise National Park.
Backcountry skiing (US), also called off-piste (Europe), alpine touring, freeriding or out-of-area, is skiing in the backcountry on unmarked or unpatrolled areas either inside or outside a ski resort's boundaries. This contrasts with alpine skiing, which is typically done on groomed trails benefiting from a ski patrol. Unlike ski touring, backcountry skiing can - and often does - include the use of ski lifts including snowcats and helicopters. Recent improvements in equipment have increased the popularity of the sport. As the sport does confront the individual practicing it with the dangers of natural, unprepared alpine terrain like avalanches, it is generally recommended to carry standard safety equipment and to learn beforehand how to behave safely under such conditions.
A snowcat is an enclosed-cab, truck-sized, fully tracked vehicle designed to move on snow. Major manufacturers are PistenBully (Germany), Prinoth (Italy) and Tucker.
A piste is a marked ski run or path down a mountain for snow skiing, snowboarding, or other mountain sports.
Badger Pass Ski Area is a small ski area located within Yosemite National Park. Badger Pass is one of only three lift serviced ski areas operating in a US National Park. It is situated five miles (8 km) south-southeast of the Chinquapin intersection of Wawona Road with Glacier Point Road in the southern area of Yosemite National Park. Glacier Point Road provides the access to this ski area. During high snow level and/or ski season, Glacier Point road terminates at Badger Pass Ski Resort. Under these conditions, the remainder of Glacier Point Road is used for cross-country skiing access to Glacier Point and other destinations in the high country.
The village of La Mongie is at 1,800 m (5,900 ft) altitude. There are also residences at 1850 and the Tourmalet building at 1900. It lies below the Col du Tourmalet 2,115 m (6,939 ft). It is in the canton of Campan in the Midi-Pyrénées region of France and around 20 kilometres (12 mi) from the Spanish border. La Mongie is a winter ski resort offering alpine skiing, snowboarding, snowpark, cross-country skiing, snowmobiles and hiking in snowshoes. In the summer cycling and the use of trials motorcycles is popular. The village has two small supermarkets, a tourist information centre, gift shops and many restaurants and ski rental shops. The nearby spa town of Bagnères-de-Bigorre offers large supermarkets and shops, restaurants, a casino, an 18-hole golf course and the natural spa baths themselves.
Montgenèvre is a commune on the Italian border in the Hautes-Alpes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in Southeastern France.
Backcountry snowboarding is snowboarding in a sparsely inhabited rural region over ungroomed and unmarked slopes or pistes in the backcountry, frequently amongst trees, usually in pursuit of fresh fallen snow, known as powder. Often, the land and the snow pack are not monitored, patrolled, or maintained. Fixed mechanical means of ascent such as ski lifts are typically not present, but alternative means such as splitboarding, hiking, snowshoeing and helicopters ("heliskiing") are sometimes used to reach the mountain's peak.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to skiing:
Neumayer-Station III, also known as Neumayer III after geophysicist Georg von Neumayer, is a German Antarctic research station of the Alfred-Wegener-Institut. It is located on the approximately 200 metres (660 ft) thick Ekström Ice Shelf several kilometres south of Neumayer-Station II. The station's assembly kit was transported to its current position early in November 2007. It is moving with the shelf ice at about 157 meters (515 ft) per year towards the open sea.
White Grass Ski Touring Center is a cross-country skiing facility located in Canaan Valley in Tucker County, West Virginia. It originally opened in 1979 on White Grass Knob near Harrisonburg, Virginia. Two years later, the operation was moved to the site of the second Weiss Knob Ski Area. The resort uses Weiss Knob's former lodge as its day lodge; it is one of the oldest dedicated cross country ski areas in the United States. Because of its status as a former downhill slope, White Grass is an unusually steep cross country area, with nearly 1,200 feet (370 m) of vertical rise—more than at neighboring downhill slope Canaan Valley Resort State Park. Its 45 trails are rated approximately 30% easy, 55% intermediate, 15% most difficult; climbs are available to the summit of 4,436-foot (1,352 m) Weiss Knob by intermediate skiing, and to 4,308-foot (1,313 m) Bald Knob via easier or intermediate trails. White Grass staff also conduct free natural history snowshoe tours each Sunday into the Canaan Valley Fish and Wildlife Refuge.
Mont-Sainte-Anne is a ski resort in eastern Canada, located in the town of Beaupré, Quebec, about 40 km (25 mi) northeast of Quebec City. The mountain is part of the Laurentian mountain chain and has a summit elevation of 800 m (2,625 ft) above sea level with a vertical drop of 625 m (2,051 ft).
A cross-country skiing trail or loipe is a route that has been laid out, constructed and maintained specifically for cross-country skiing. Trails may extend point-to-point, but are more typically loops for recreational use or for competition. Until the mid-20th Century, trails were tracked by the passage of skiers. More recently, snow groomers set tracks for classic skiing and smooth lanes for skate skiing.
This glossary of skiing and snowboarding terms is a list of definitions of terms and jargon used in skiing, snowboarding, and related winter sports.
