Short Turns: Ski Mountaineering debuts at 2026 Olympics

Over the past quarter century, ski mountaineering has gained popularity—both as a recreational sport (known as Alpine touring or “uphilling”) and a competitive event. At February’s 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Games, skimo, as it’s commonly called, makes its Olympic debut. Or, some might argue, its Olympic return.

At the skimo World Cup and world championships, events include the individual, vertical, sprint and mixed-relay disciplines. The Olympics will feature only the sprint and team relay, with 18 racers per gender.

The history of ski mountaineering is the history of skiing itself. From the time our ancestors first fashioned skis from wood until ski lifts were invented, skiers have traversed great distances and scaled mountains, often using seal skins affixed to the ski bases to prevent them from sliding backwards. Even after the invention of lifts, Alpinists have continued to don skins (mohair or synthetic) on their skis to summit snowy peaks. Ski mountaineering also became a strategic option for the military, at first in Europe, then in the United States during World War II.

Mountaineering and Alpinism have actually been part of the Olympics since the first Olympic Congress in 1894. The newly formed International Olympic Committee planned to award a gold medal for Alpinism and mountaineering. But that medal was not awarded until the 1924 Winter Games in Chamonix, when the unsuccessful 1922 British Everest expedition was presented with the Prix Olympique d’Alpinisme.

At the same Olympiad, an event called military patrol was considered a ski-mountaineering competition; teams traveled 20 kilometers up and over mountains while carrying rifles. Biathlon is rooted in military patrol, but so is ski mountaineering, says USA Skimo’s head of sport Sarah Cookler. Some may say that Milano Cortina is a “return to the Olympic games for ski mountaineering,” she adds.

Ski-mountaineering events continued to be contested in the mid-20th century. In 1933, friends of Ottorino Mezzalama started the Mezzalama Trophy race in Italy’s Aosta Valley to honor the famed mountain guide. Soldiers and other guides participated in the Mezzalama, held annually until 1938. The race was resurrected for four runnings in the 1970s. The 1975 edition was dubbed the Ski Mountaineering World Championships, and Italy swept the podium in the three categories: civilians, soldiers and mountain guides.

In 1997, the Mezzalama Trophy became a biannual race with no separate categories for the military or mountain guides (although many European ski mountaineers work for the military). The Mezzalama Trophy is now considered part of La Grande Course, the six most important ski-mountaineering races on the calendar, including the Patrouille des Glaciers in Switzerland (started during World War II to test the abilities of soldiers; the course is still set by the Swiss military) and the Pierra Menta in France’s Savoie region (started in 1986). The Grande Course races are team events—two or three athletes per team stay together to travel over rugged, technical terrain.

Other ski-mountaineering races, also known as randonnée races (French for ski touring), became popular in Europe in the 1990s as well. From 1992 to 2009, the Comité International du Ski-Alpinisme de Compétition (CISAC)—founded by the skiing associations of France, Italy, Slovakia, Andorra and Switzerland—sanctioned the European Championship. In 1999, CISAC merged with the International Council for Ski Mountaineering Competitions (ISMC), which became the International Ski Mountaineering Federation (ISMF) in 2008.

The first ISMC-sanctioned skimo world championship was held in 2002 in Serre Chevalier, France, about two hours west of Turin, Italy, in the French Alps. The championship drew 230 racers from 22 countries and did not feature a category for the military. Skimo world championships have been held biennially since then, switching to odd years in 2011 (and sanctioned by ISMF since 2008). Two years later, ISMF proposed a World Cup tour. Skimo races were slower to catch on in the U.S. but momentum built in the 2010s, and popular local races now dot many resorts’ winter calendars.

At the World Cup and world championships, the individual event is a traditional mountaineering-type race, explains Cookler, with competitors going up and over multiple peaks. “It’s a longer-distance race and more of a classic ski-mountaineering event,” she says. The vertical race, meanwhile, is like a drag race from bottom to top, with no ski descent.

The sprint is a microcosm of ski mountaineering, with each heat taking about three minutes. Six skiers at a time charge off the starting line; each sprint uphill includes a section where athletes climb—or skin—on their skis, then another section of boot packing (or the “foot part,” as they say in Europe). The uphill also features a prescribed zigzag section called “diamonds” that racers skin up.

At the top of the sprint course, skiers rip off their skins in the transition zone and race down to the finish. The downhill section often resembles a ski-cross course, with gates, berms and a mandatory jump. Skiers tackle these technical downhills using lightweight skis that are only 150 centimeters long for women, 160 for men, and boots that more closely resemble cross-country than Alpine boots. Organized like a cross-country skiing sprint, the skimo version features a qualifier, then heats of six skiers to determine who makes the final.

The mixed relay features two competitors per team, one male and one female, who each complete two laps of an uphill and downhill course. Equipment is standardized across all disciplines, and competitors must have their boots, skis and bindings weighed to the gram after competitions.

Some racers and skimo fans are disappointed that the Olympics won’t feature the more classic ski mountaineering race: the individual. Counters Cookler, “There’s a positive way of looking at this, that it’s a gateway to showcasing the entire sport at future Olympics.”

France will host the 2030 Winter Olympics, and their athletes lead current ISMF standings, with Emily Harrop and Thibault Anselmet heavy favorites to win the 2026 Olympic sprints and mixed relay. Harrop and Anselmet are the reigning mixed-relay world champions. 

Snapshots in Time

1937 Not a Fad
A skier is better equipped than ever for the sport, he has more friends eager to try it, more snow trains are waiting and the resorts in the mountains of the East are pining for his visits. This Winter the skiers of New England and the Middle Atlantic States may number well over half a million, of varying skill. Last year there were half that figure. And the remarkable growth of the “king of Winter sports” in the East is duplicated in the West. Here, truly, is a phenomenon not idle, or passing or faddish. — Frederick Gruin, “Track! And the Daring Skier Comes A-flying.” (New York Times, January 31, 1937)

1956 No Wedeln Doubts
I am writing as a director of the Far West Ski Instructors’ Association, perhaps the most progressive organization of its kind in this country. I am sure there are many who doubt that wedeln turns can be taught to beginners. I have proven to my own satisfaction, and to that of many, many skiers, that it can. Experiments with such an approach applied to the method of teaching parallel skiing have produced most gratifying results, especially to youngsters. These findings are the subject of a book of mine scheduled for publication next year. Maybe after your next article, I should entitle it Wedeln Waltzing auf dem Schnee. What do you think? — Doug Pfeiffer, Co-Director, Summit Ski School, Big Bear Lake, California, “Wedeln” (Letters, SKI Magazine, November 1956)

1977 Still Good Advice, 48 Years Later
I think all the time how close I came to really eating it. What if we hadn’t any matches? How about a broken femur and the attendant shock? What if it had been 20 degrees colder and snowing? Or how about if I had been skiing alone? The answer to all of these questions is that O.B. skiing with nothing but the clothes on your back is probably the most dangerous thing you’ll ever do. — Lou Dawson, “Out of Bounds and Out of Luck.” (Powder Magazine, November 1977)

2023 Skiing’s Unsustainable Business Model
“On any given day, you can go down to Coors Field and you can buy a $15 ticket to sit in the bleachers. Or you can spend thousands of dollars to have a premium experience. And then there’s everything in between. We’re going to have to figure how to balance that. How do we create more optionality? And if we do that right, that should allow us to lower the price for people to enter the sport for the first time. Now, the people who come the most, we’re going to charge them the least. And the people who we’re trying to get to join for the first time, we’re going to charge them the most. That’s not a sustainable model, right?” — Alterra CEO Jared Smith (The Storm Skiing Journal, Stuart Winchester, Podcast #138, July 2023)

2025 Parking Your Money in a Resort Garage
High real estate prices typically refer to houses, not places to put your car. But in a few Colorado ski resort towns, parking spots are now a hot accessory real estate item. In Beaver Creek, a parking space in a garage sold for the list price of $250,000 in late 2024. The listing described the benefits of this investment: “So your property owners wanted ski-in ski-out but ended up buying outside the resort? Here is your solution. Buy this parking space that has a ski-in ski-out ski locker and parking space in Beaver Creek. Priced to sell at the same price as the last two sales.” — Mindy Sink, “Would you buy a Colorado ski-town parking spot for $415,000? (Denver Post, April 17, 2025)