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Snow Magazine | Winter 2025/26
Every time the Winter Olympics rolls around, there’s an inevitable hype around the UK’s best skiers, who are talked up as medal contenders. But the brutal truth is that Brits are far more likely to finish “a plucky fourth” (or lower) than they are to stand on the podium. In over a century of competing in the Games, British skiers have won exactly one medal—Izzy Atkin’s Slopestyle bronze at Pyeongchang in 2018. Add in snowboarding—where Jenny Jones won a Slopestyle bronze at Sochi 2014, and Billy Morgan bagged the same in the Pyeongchang Big Air—and the tally looks a little more healthy. But no-one would ever mistake us for a nation of overachievers.
This time, however, feels different. In Mia Brookes (who we interview on p.28), Zoe Atkin, Kirsty Muir and Charlotte Bankes, Team GB has a quartet of remarkable women who have won World Championships and X Games golds, topped the FIS rankings, and stood atop multiple World Cup podiums. This cohort of luminously-talented young skiers and snowboarders are not going to the Games to make up the numbers—they’re there to win. Nothing breeds success like success, with medals meaning more lottery funding for elite athletes, and publicity drawing in the next generation. So it’s no exaggeration to say that this Olympics could be the start of a golden era for wintersports in the UK.
Of course, we’re not pretending the Olympics are the be-all and end-all, and this issue isn’t all about them. Dan Wildey’s touring trip to Sweden (p.66) and Matt Georges’ portfolio of soulful snowboard shots (p.54) could not be further away from the five-ringed circus if they tried. Elsewhere, we look at the growth in shorter getaways and train travel, explore the work of avalanche dogs (p.88), and attend the Alps’ biggest après event (p.102).
One of the best things about the sports we love is that they offer this much variety. Which is why we hope that February’s Olympics will be the best showcase of British talent ever assembled on snow—and inspire a whole new generation to join in the fun. Let the
games begin!
See you on the hill.
- Tristan Kennedy, Editor
SNOW MAGAZINE BACK ISSUES
Snow Magazine | Winter 2024/25
I learned a new word while editing this year’s print annual: Lebensgefühl. Like Schadenfreude, Wanderlust, Weltschmerz or indeed Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän* it’s one of those wonderful German compound nouns that defies direct translation, but describes a sensation so perfectly that you can’t believe the concept doesn’t exist in English. The Collins German-English dictionary will tell you that it means “awareness of life” or “feeling of being alive,” but that doesn’t quite nail it. The word also carries connotations of reveling in the joy of being alive. It’s an idea I’ve been thinking about a lot recently. My wife and I welcomed our first child this summer, and Lebensgefühl feels like the perfect descriptor of the pure, unadulterated joy that I see on his face every day as he discovers the world around him.
Like most winter sports loving parents, I’m already imagining a future where we can “ski properly” together—an experience Jim Walker describes sharing with his daughter for the first time in his family skiing story for this issue (p.62). But the thing I’m looking forward to most of all is just introducing him to snow.
I’m now nearly 40 years old, and have been snowboarding for more than half my life. But fresh snow still turns me into an excitable child. This is especially true if I’m discovering a new place at the same time, like Mestia in Georgia (p. 44) or the wonderfully-named Powder Mountain (p. 72) both of which I was lucky enough to travel to for this issue. But I feel the same sense of childlike wonder even if I’m at home, on the familiar terrain of my local mountains in Italy. With winter approaching, and a dusting on the summits already, it’s a sensation I’m looking forward to—and a feeling that I can’t wait to share with my son. Especially as I now know the word for it.
See you on the hill.
- Tristan Kennedy, Editor
* Not strictly true. This 42-letter word, which means “Danube steam ship company captain,” is actually easily translatable. I just like it, as the ultimate German compound noun.
Snow Magazine | Winter 2023/24
These days, many of the planet’s most famous places are plagued by what I like to call ‘Insta-familiarity’. It might be your first visit to Venice, for example, but chances are you already know exactly what St Mark’s Square looks like because you’ve seen it a million times on your feed. Of course some sights (we’re looking at you, Eiffel Tower) will never quite live up to their hype. But Insta-familiarity can make even the most spectacular places feel a bit ‘meh’ in real life: the internet is awash with accounts of people who’ve hiked up to Machu Picchu only to feel disappointed, because it didn’t look as good as the filtered images they’d seen online.
I thought about this phenomenon last February when I visited Cappadocia, the UNESCO World Heritage site in central Turkey (p.44). I’d seen thousands of photos of its famous “fairy chimneys” previously—but always photographed in summer, against a bright blue sky, surrounded by hot air balloons. The day we visited was grey, dreary and overcast. Yet because they were covered in snow, the limestone towers looked more remarkable, not less. Fresh snow will do that to a landscape. You don’t have to boldy go where no-one has gone before to make a ski trip feel new and thrilling (although that can be fun too, as Abi Butcher found when she skied previously-unexplored glaciers in Greenland, p.70). Sometimes, just venturing off piste, even in a well-known resort like Val Thorens (p.87), can be enough. Getting locals to share their recommendations (as we did in the Valais on p.78) also helps.
But the best thing about the sport we love is that wherever you choose to go, variations in snow depth, temperature and conditions mean that you’ll rarely ski the same line as anyone else, even if you’re literally following in their tracks. Insta-familiarity might tarnish summer destinations, but no amount of looking at snowy photos can take from the real-life experience of skiing powder, or diminish the feeling of getting out there, and doing it yourself.
See you on the hill.
- Tristan Kennedy, Editor
Snow Magazine | Winter 2022/23
I’ve not been watching the new Game of Thrones. But more than once in the past month, I’ve found myself excitedly repeating the original show’s catchphrase: “winter is coming”. It’s a happy thought to cling to in what often feels like an ocean of overlapping environmental crises—from the catastrophic floods in Pakistan, to glacier collapses in Italy, to the impact of Hurricane Ian in Florida.
When the news cycle is so unremittingly bleak, dreaming about skiing and snowboarding can feel like a frivolous indulgence—fiddling while the planet burns. But often, it’s their love of sports like these that drives the people who are making the biggest difference. Witness the story of Yvon Chouinard, the passionate climber, skier and surfer who founded Patagonia in 1973, built it into one of the world’s biggest brands, and then, a month before we went to print, announced that he was giving the entire, multi-billion-dollar enterprise away in order to combat climate change. As well as offering a powerful example of how business can be a force for good, the reluctant billionaire’s mic drop moment showed the true meaning of putting your money where your mouth is. “If we have any hope of a thriving planet 50 years from now, it demands all of us doing all we can with the resources we have,” said Chouinard, by way of explanation. “I am doing my part”.
This issue mixes stories of people and organizations “doing their part” (like Europe’s most eco-friendly ski resorts p. 56) with stories designed to stoke your love of the winter sports world, from Kosovo (p. 82) to Canada (p. 64). We hope they inspire you to channel your inner Yvon, and indulge that love. But we also hope they serve as a reminder that we must all “do all we can with the resources we have” to help curb carbon emissions—and to ensure that, in future, winters keep coming.
See you on the hill.
- Tristan Kennedy, Editor
Snow Magazine | Winter 2021/22
They say absence makes the heart grow fonder. So it’s no surprise that I, like many other people, am absolutely frothing about the start of winter.
Without wanting to jinx it, at the time of writing, all the signs are looking positive. Lifts have already started running in some parts of Europe, resorts are opening up, and excitement is reaching fever pitch. Of course, a lot of things will doubtless be different.
Masks and other precautions will probably be required. After all, we’re not out of the woods when it comes to Covid yet. But there’s nothing like being denied something you love to make you realise how much you miss it.
Like several of the contributors to this year’s magazine (including pro skier Chemmy Alcott, and professional photographer Rob Grew, I was lucky enough to see some snow last winter. I live in Italy, and even though lifts were shut, ski touring was still allowed.
If anything though, stripping the activity of its normal rituals – the excitement of travel, the enjoyment of après pints, the sharing of post-shred stories – made me realise that the actual skiing itself is arguably the least important part of it.
The thing I really missed about skiing is the same thing I’ve missed for so much of the past 18 months: being able to spend time with other people, whether that’s friends, or family, or even just some randoms who’ve bought you a shot of jäger at the bar.
Hopefully, this magazine will provide plenty of inspiration for places to ski this winter, from Scotland (featured on our cover, no less), to Svalbard. Here’s to enjoying it all with other people, and soaking up every moment after so long away. See you out there.
- Tristan Kennedy, Editor
