Winter sports, for me, are an indoor matter: an unhealthy obsession with the N.B.A. and a lifelong mystification by, and indifference to, the slippery world of the N.H.L. Evidently, there are those who think more broadly and actually participate—outdoors, even. Maybe after such a long quarantine, those enthusiasts—the skiers, the climbers, and the rest—have a point. This week, we’re bringing you a selection of pieces on skiing, snowboarding, and other perilous winter pastimes. In “The Wild Carnival at the Heart of Skiing’s Most Dangerous Race,” Nick Paumgarten visits a small town in the Austrian Alps known for its extraordinarily formidable slopes. In “Learning to Ski in a Country of Beginners,” Peter Hessler travels across China to see how its athletes are getting ready to compete in next year’s Winter Olympics, in Beijing. In “Dude, Where’s the Snow?,” Sheila Yasmin Marikar reports on the snowboarder Jeremy Jones and his campaign to raise awareness about the dangers of climate change. In “Kílian Jornet, Sky Runner,” Stephen Kurczy follows the champion ski mountaineer as he attempts to conquer heights that ought to defy conquering. Finally, in “The Adventure of a Skier,” Italo Calvino works his magic as he describes a group of young boys who set out on a winter adventure in northern Italy. “Air and snow were now the same color, opaque white, but by peering intently into that whiteness, so that it almost became less dense, the boys could make out the sky-blue shadow, suspended in the midst of it, flying this way and that as if on a violin string.” Enjoy. And wear a hat.
—David Remnick
From The New Yorker’s Archive
Letter from Austria
The Wild Carnival at the Heart of Skiing’s Most Dangerous Race
The punishing Hahnenkamm downhill brings street-party revelry to a medieval town in the Tyrolean Alps.
By Nick Paumgarten | April 29, 2019
Fiction
“The Adventure of a Skier”
“One by one they fell, backward or forward, and he alone was cutting through the air, bent double over his skis, until he saw her.”
By Italo Calvino | July 3, 2017
A Reporter at Large
Learning to Ski in a Country of Beginners
As China prepares to host the Winter Olympics, its people get on skis.
By Peter Hessler | June 21, 2021
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Let It Snow Dept.
Dude, Where’s the Snow?
Pro-snowboarder-turned-activist Jeremy Jones publicizes climate change via Instagram.
By Sheila Yasmin Marikar | April 16, 2018
The Sporting Scene
Kílian Jornet, Sky Runner
Jornet is widely considered the world’s fastest mountain runner and one of its most exciting endurance athletes.
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