40 Skiing Facts: Records, Numbers and Surprising Firsts (2026)

Quick Skiing Facts

History Facts

1. Skiing is roughly 8,000 years old. The oldest ski fragments, found in northern Russia, are dated to around 6000 to 8000 BCE, making skiing older than the wheel.
2. It started as transportation, for hunting, herding and travel across deep snow, not for fun.
3. "Ski" comes from Old Norse for a split piece of wood.
4. One of the oldest preserved skis, found at Kalvträsk in Sweden, is about 5,200 years old.
5. Armies skied first. Norway's army held prize ski competitions from 1767 that combined skiing and shooting, an early form of biathlon.
6. The first public ski competition was held in Tromsø, Norway, in 1843.
7. A mail carrier skied the Sierra Nevada. Norwegian-born Snowshoe Thompson carried mail between California and Nevada on skis from 1856.
8. The first US rope tow ran on a Vermont hillside near Woodstock in 1934, powered by a Model T engine.
9. The world's first chairlifts opened at Sun Valley, Idaho, in 1936.
10. Vail opened in 1962 with $5 lift tickets.

Read the full story in the history of skiing.

Speed and Record Facts

11. The fastest skier on record topped 158 MPH. France's Simon Billy set the world record of 255.5 km/h (about 158.8 MPH) at Vars, France, in March 2023.
12. The women's record is brand new. Italy's Valentina Greggio reached 248.27 km/h at Vars on April 3, 2026.
13. The 200 km/h barrier fell in 1978, when American Steve McKinney became the first skier to break it.
14. Many online lists are out of date. Older speed records from 2006 and 2016 have since been beaten.
15. Snowboarders are fast too. Edmond Plawczyk set a snowboard speed record of 203.275 km/h (about 126 MPH) at Vars in 2015.
16. The longest ski jumps top 250 meters. Slovenia's Domen Prevc set the ski flying world record of 254.5 meters at Planica in March 2025, and his sister Nika Prevc set the women's record of 242.5 meters there in March 2026. Ryoyu Kobayashi's 291-meter jump in Iceland in 2024 was not ratified by FIS because it wasn't made under competition rules.

Speed skiing uses special aerodynamic suits, helmets and extra-long skis on a dedicated, steep track.

Racing and Olympic Facts

17. Mikaela Shiffrin has the most World Cup wins of any alpine skier, 110 as of early November 2026, well ahead of Ingemar Stenmark's 86. In 2025/26 she won her sixth overall World Cup title, tying the record.
18. Shiffrin also won slalom gold at Milano Cortina 2026 by 1.50 seconds, her third Olympic gold.
19. Johannes Høsflot Klæbo won all six men's cross-country events at Milano Cortina 2026, the most golds by anyone at a single Winter Games, for a record 11 career Winter Olympic golds.
20. Marit Bjørgen of Norway has 15 Winter Olympic medals, the most of any Winter Olympian.
21. Alpine skiing joined the Olympics in 1936, 12 years after Nordic skiing appeared at the first Winter Games in 1924.
22. Ski mountaineering became an Olympic sport in 2026, the newest skiing discipline on the program.

See Olympic skiing for every event and medalist.

Mountain and Snow Facts

23. Mt. Baker in Washington recorded 1,140 inches of snow in the 1998/99 season, which the resort says NOAA verified as a single-season world record.
24. Les 3 Vallées in France bills itself as the world's largest ski area, with about 600 km of linked runs, 169 lifts and seven resorts.
25. Park City Mountain in Utah is generally considered the largest lift-served ski resort in the US, at about 7,300 skiable acres.
26. The Vallée Blanche, an off-piste route from the Aiguille du Midi down to Chamonix, drops about 2,800 meters (over 9,000 feet) over roughly 20 km.
27. A bad snow year shows up fast. US skier visits dropped by about 9 million in 2025/26 after a poor snow season in the West.

Explore the largest ski resorts and the highest ski resorts.

US Ski Industry Facts

28. US ski areas recorded 61.5 million skier visits in 2024/25, the second-best season on record, according to the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA). The record season was 2022/23.
29. 492 US ski areas operated in 2024/25.
30. 2025/26 visits fell to about 52.6 million, according to preliminary NSAA data, as national average snowfall came in at 112 inches versus a 10-year average of 169.
31. The Rocky Mountain region leads, with about 20.1 million visits in 2025/26, ahead of the Northeast at about 12.9 million.

A "skier visit" is one person skiing or snowboarding for any part of one day, so the number of individual people is much smaller. Find where to go in the best ski resorts in the US.

Skiing Around the World

32. Global skier visits hit a record of about 399 million in 2024/25, topping the previous high of 392 million in 2018/19, according to Laurent Vanat's International Report on Snow & Mountain Tourism.
33. Skiing is a 68-country sport. The same report counts about 2,000 ski resorts among roughly 5,800 snow-covered outdoor ski areas in 68 countries.
34. The US, France and Austria lead the world in skier visits. China ranked seventh in 2024/25, close behind Switzerland.

Figures from Laurent Vanat's 2026 International Report on Snow & Mountain Tourism; country methods vary slightly, so the US figure differs a little from NSAA's.

Health and Safety Facts

35. Downhill skiing burns about 216 calories in 30 minutes for a 155-pound person, according to Harvard Health; cross-country skiing burns about 246.
36. Helmet use has soared. According to NSAA figures, about 91% of US skiers and riders wore helmets in 2024/25, up from 25% in 2002/03.
37. Serious accidents are rare per visit. NSAA reported 50 fatalities in 2024/25, during a season of 61.5 million visits, or roughly 0.8 per million visits by our calculation.
38. Helmets help, but aren't a force field. NSAA urges skiers to wear a helmet but to ski as if they weren't wearing one.
39. Skiers hurt their knees; snowboarders hurt their wrists. A long-running University of Vermont study of more than 10,000 injured skiers and riders found knee ligament injuries such as ACL and MCL tears were the most common skiing injuries, while snowboarders more often injured wrists, shoulders and ankles.
40. Tree wells are a hidden hazard. In deep-snow research experiments, 90% of participants couldn't rescue themselves from a tree well. See how to ski powder for safety tips.

Calories Burned Skiing

Figures are estimates from Harvard Health; your actual burn depends on terrain, effort and conditions.

More Skiing Guides

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