Alps without snow

The traditional beginning of the ski season in Switzerland is marred by the lack of snow in the Alps. Last autumn was a record dry in the country, reports BBC News.

Drought is bad for the tourism industry Switzerland. Major resorts such as Davos and St. Moritz have had to open fewer ski slopes that are snow-pumped with snow cannons. Other resorts were forced to postpone the start of the season.

The situation is aggravated by the strong Swiss franc: this year it has risen sharply against the euro, the dollar and the British pound, which has made ski holidays in Switzerland more expensive than in France, Italy or Austria.

There was little snow in parts of the Swiss Alps on Saturday, but not enough to start the ski season.

Neighboring countries also face the problem of snow shortage. For example, a resort in the Austrian mountains of Kachberg hired fifteen chimney sweeps to pray for snow (Austrians believe that chimney sweeps bring happiness).

The beginning of the ski era falls on the middle of the XIX century. Not far from the capital of Norway, in the mountainous province of Telemark, such technical techniques of descent from snowy slopes and ski jumping from a mountain ledge appeared, which left far behind the clumsy old ride with a long pole, which helped the skier to push back, and turn, and brake.

The new technique of descent was invented by the Norwegian Sondre Norheim. He offered the Telemark skiers two dynamic styles - a descent on parallel and alternately moving forward skis, and demonstrated for the first time a turn called a "telemark". Having fixed the heel of a ski boot with an elastic strap and connecting it with a strap in the sock area, Norheim showed in 1850 a method of turning and braking on parallel skis, later called “Christianity”.

Source http://www.vokrugsveta.ru/news/13756/