Winter sports tourism

A winter sport is a sport performed in or on snow or ice, or otherwise needing freezing temperatures. Most are variations of skiing, ice skating and sledding. Traditionally, such games were only played in cold areas during winter, but artificial snow and artificial ice allow more flexibility. Artificial ice can be used to provide ice rinks for ice skating, ice hockey, and bandy in a milder climate.

Common individual sports include cross-country skiing, alpine skiing, snowboarding, ski jumping, speed skating, figure skating, luge, skeleton, bobsleigh, ski orienteering and snowmobiling. Common team sports include ice hockey, curling, and bandy. Based on the number of participants, ice hockey is by far the world’s most popular winter sport, followed by bandy. Winter sports have their own multi-sport events, such as the Winter Olympic Games and the Winter Universiade.

Biathlon
The biathlon is cross-country skiing combined with rifle shooting: you ski around a circuit whilst carrying a rifle on your back. At certain intervals you will stop and take aim at targets with the rifle and each miss of the target adds some to the skier’s time. In addition to being good at skiing and shooting, you have to have good enough nerves and judgement neither to hurry too much nor use too much time at the targets.

While junior and beginner contestants pick up and drop the gun at the shooting range, professional contestants carry the gun around the track.

Cross country skiing
Cross country skiing can be used as a mean to travel easily in thick snow in the wilderness or as an alternative pastime at ski resorts. It can allow quite easy access to places which seem untouched by man. The skis are different from those normally used in downhill skiing.

Cross-country skiing involves either shuffling or skating over tracks. As with all Nordic skis the heel is not attached to the ski. This style of skiing is highly energetic as there is no downhill cruising involved, the skier is constantly pushing with their poles and moving their skis across the flat or uphill terrain. Occasionally there is a small downhill section. Cross-country is in no way similar to Alpine skiing, it is a form of transport in the Nordic countries, Russia and rural areas in parts of the Baltic states. Depending on conditions (and the skier) the speed will be from about as fast as using snowshoes to faster than running. Due to the flat or rolling terrain in much of Scandinavia cross-country is a widely practised sport, the equivalent to jogging in the summer. Larger alpine skiing resorts will most likely have some marked tracks and a rental shop available to the public.

Dog sledding
Dog sledding was the fastest mode of transport through snowy lands before snowmobiles, and remains a popular pastime.

Downhill skiing and snowboarding
Downhill skiing is a popular sport involving sliding down snow-covered terrain with skis attached to each foot. Ski resorts around the world attract millions of travellers yearly. There are two main variants, the more common Alpine skiing, where both toes and heels are attached to the ski, and Nordic downhill or Telemark skiing, with loose heels.

Snowboarding is another way of going downhill, more difficult than downhill skiing.

Ice sailing
Ice sailing can allow very fast speeds, often as a sport. Either an iceboat is used (often a light construction looking like a trimaran sled), or a skater carries a sail himself. Also a board with runners, similar to a sailboard, can be used.

Ice skating
There are several ways of using (different kinds of) skates, such as ice hockey, figure-skating, racing and long distance skating.

Snowkiting
Snowkiting is “winter’s newest extreme sport”, requiring only the wind, a snowkite, skies or snowboard, and an attitude for fun. The sport has endless possibilities, such as backcountry skiing without a ski lift or resort – your snowkite will pull you uphill and downhill at varying speeds. Snowkites can accelerate up to 50 mph. The lifting power of the wind will allow you to jump to distances of up to 100 feet.

When snowkiting in the backcountry be aware of avalanche danger! Always snowkite in groups, wear an avalanche beacon, dress warm, and never exceed your limits.

Snowkiting is popular in Central Utah, a region of the United States of America.

Snowmobiling
Snowmobiling is a sport involving riding over snow on a motorized vehicle. It is popular throughout the western United States of America as well as in Canada and Alaska.

In northern parts of the Nordic countries driving snowmobiles is a common way of getting around for locals and for tourist tours – and a tool for reindeer herding.

Telemark skiing
Telemark skiing is another method of downhill skiing, with loose heels. Practitioners often think it is more enjoyable than the alpine variant. It also allows covering rolling terrain as it is easy to walk up hills with the loose heel. The technique is more difficult than alpine skiing and beginners to snow sports should usually not start with Telemark, but progress to it.

Winter swimming
Winter swimming is done in cold weather, and ice swimming at freezing temperatures, preferably followed by a sauna bath.

Stay safe
Where there is cold weather, there is usually snow and ice, which in themselves can pose some risks.

The most common cause for accidents in winter is slippery roads, pavements (sidewalks) and especially steps. At a minimum, you need footwear with suitable soles. Summer shoes are usually very slippery on ice and snow, even some winter boots are deficient. The pattern should be deep enough, 5 mm (1/5 inch) or more, and the material soft enough in cold temperatures. Some boots have studs and there is studded add-on equipment for slippery conditions, suitable for most shoes and boots, for the heels or heels and sole. Heels should be low and wide. Sand, gravel or salt (calcium chloride) is often scattered on roads or paths to improve traction.

In slippery conditions it is generally advisable to do a “penguin walk” with very short steps rather than the longer stride used in other circumstances. This reduces the tendency to slip because there is less horizontal force where the foot meets the ground. Also, if one foot does slip, your chances of recovering without a fall are better because your center of gravity is more nearly above the leg that still has traction. If you manage to put down your feet gently, with no sudden force in any direction, you can use nearly normal strides, but that strategy requires quite some concentration.

Snow safety
Even moderate snowfall – or wind causing snow to fly around – will reduce visibility substantially. It will also cover your trail in little time. In open landscape, like on mires, lakes and fell heaths, you will need some way to keep a course accurate enough to find shelter. Really thick snowfall can make it difficult even to find the route across a yard.

The snow will often hide dangers, such as cracks in the ice and clefts in the rock, or give the impression a cliff extends farther than it does.

In mountainous terrain avalanches are a real risk. Always use local warning services.

Even in town, falling ice or snow can be a serious danger. In particular, icicles may come off the edge of a roof and hit pedestrians below, and a heavy chunk of ice dropping several storeys is easily fatal. Note that ice sliding off the roof will hit the ground quite some distance from the wall, avoiding falling icicles is not enough. Sometimes you can identify both danger zones, keep clear.

Ice safety
The frozen sea, lakes and rivers may be inviting. A number of activities on frozen bodies of water – skating, snowmobiling, ice fishing and ice boating – are fairly common. During prohibition, bootleggers even ran truckloads of booze from Canada into the US across the frozen Saint Lawrence; those were quite heavy but reasonably safe with two meters of mid-winter ice. However, always seek knowledgeable local advice on which areas are safe. The ice may be thin or otherwise unreliable in some areas, even when thick in general. If the ice breaks, it is hard or impossible to get out without tools or assistance. Purpose-designed ice climbing picks, worn on a sling around the neck, are sold to ice fishers.

There may also be substantial dangers from the sheer speeds involved in some modes of moving. An ice boat is far faster than a normal sailboat, because of the low friction, and a good skater is much faster than a runner, but if you fall, ice is as hard as concrete. Skiers and snowboarders do not have to worry about the hardness of ice, but they also move fast enough that any mistake can cause serious injury.

Health
Ski disease
The ski disease is, like the winter sport itself, still a very young disease and was first in 1995 by the Swiss physician Rudolf Häusler, the former chief physician of the University Hospital for Otorhinolaryngology (ENT) in Bern, from his own experience in a fall described on the piste.

Symptoms include dizziness and nausea with vomiting when skiing, especially on days with poor visibility and fog, and these symptoms have nothing to do with excessive consumption of alcohol (eg Jagatee) or bad food. In extreme cases, those affected completely lose their orientation, feel panic and even see non-existent avalanches, or believe they are moving in an avalanche.

The cause is a disturbance of the organ of balance in the inner ear due to strong accelerations and hallucinations from unfamiliar visual impressions such as blurred contours in fog. The ski disease is one of the travel diseases (motion sicknesses / kinetoses) such as. The seasickness and can also meet experienced mountain guides, the occurrence of the disease is independent of the altitude of the ski resort.

The risk group mainly includes people with visual anomalies such as myopia or astigmatism . The proportion of those affected is high, according to surveys among students, between ten and twenty percent of respondents could describe experiences with the symptoms, for the risk group with visual abnormalities, the risk is up to four times.

As a precaution , the people susceptible to the disease should not go out on the track in case of poor visibility. If you do not want to do without, you can help yourself against travel sickness by using the usual means such as special chewing gum or medicines. However, for drugs, these drugs have a negative impact on the balance and responsiveness.

Who suffers an attack of ski disease on the slopes , should stop the journey in a safe place and take with eyes an immovable and contrasting object such as a tree or a rock firmly in the view. If the dizziness still persists, you should unbuckle the skis.

Destinations
Winter in North America
Alps
Winter in the Nordic countries
Winter sports in Australia
Winter sports in Austria
Winter sports in Switzerland
Skiing in Lebanon