Protect Our Winters

Education is one of the most important factors in driving social change towards a more sustainable and increasingly fair world. For this reason, Protect Our Winters Austria organises a variety of different climate workshops that are adapted to the respective target group. With the "Mountainsports for Everyone" project, POW Austria has set itself the goal of providing children and young people who normally have little or no connection to mountain sports with low-threshold access to climbing, mountain biking, skiing and snowboarding. At the same time, important knowledge and an awareness of the climate crisis was imparted to them through age-appropriate climate workshops.

Martin is a member of "Protect our Winters Austria", in his last two guest posts he explained why he is involved with "POW" and how the NGO is organised. The content of today's guest article is an interview with POW athlete Rosina Friedel:

The Powderfest, the freeride festival in the Silvretta Montafon, took place for the 4th time this year from 2-4 February 2024. Once again this year, a varied freeride programme awaited all participants with a focus on RIDE-LEARN-CONNECT.

Martin is a volunteer with "Protect our Winters Austria". In his last guest article, he dealt with moral questions of being constantly confronted with being an active winter sports enthusiast and also an environmentally conscious person. Part of his answer to these questions lies in his commitment to POW, and now it is time for him to introduce "Protect our Winters Austria" and dispel a few preconceptions.

Let's pause and just consciously block out everything that's going wrong in this world and how difficult it is to forecast the weather numerically. Kye droppin! Kye Petersen's life is full of tragedy, but his skiing is full of glamour. What's more, Michael Larcher comes back to earth every year to remind us of all avalanche-related things!

In this guest article, Martin, a volunteer with "Protect Our Winters Austria", explains how he deals with the moral dilemma of skiing. A recurring dilemma that catches up with him and many of us winter sports enthusiasts year after year. Because whenever there are reports of new climate records in autumn, the media discuss the early start of the season, society has long since found the culprits and yet we can think of nothing else but ploughing through the snow as soon as possible, our guilty conscience grows. But the question is, why?

At the beginning of February, from 03.02.2023 to 05.02.2023, Silvretta Montafon will be hosting the freeride event with the illustrious name "Powderfest" for the third time. The freeride station offers a comprehensive and varied program from Friday to Sunday: As part of various workshops, ski tests and guided tours, everyone goes in search of the best lines and the most beautiful powder in the Silvretta Montafon!

The snow of tomorrow has many faces. And as we can't and don't want to imagine the future of winter sports alone, PowderGuide author Lisa spoke to Moritz Nachtschatt, Managing Director of Protect our Winters Austria, about what POW is doing for the future of the sport, why day tours are anything but climate-friendly and what ski resorts will look like in 2050.

At the company site of PowderGuide partner GORE-TEX southeast of Munich, the sports-loving Gore workforce has to realize that climate change does not stop at leisure activities: Climate change does not stop at leisure activities. Cross-country skiing right on the doorstep is almost no longer possible and the ski touring season in the nearby Bavarian Alps is getting shorter and shorter.

Inspired by the last column "Snow of Tomorrow", the new mantra is: "Sustainability sells". The VdW and the ski film industry also need to reorient themselves: "Bigger, deeper, steeper" plus "fat beats" times "kerosene" only leads to "head shaking to tired yawns" among the trained public. So here we present a selection of particularly "green, sustainable, environmentally friendly" ski films, or at least that's what we think.

Our winters are changing. This is not only due to too many party-happy tourists storming the ski resorts, but also to climate change. This has an impact on our sport as we know it. Protect our Winters knows this, as does Dani Hochmuth, founder of POW Austria.