It’s been a stupidly hot summer for a significant portion of the Northern Hemisphere. Mountain top glaciers are melting, resorts, usually open in the summer, have been forced to close, and energy conservation requirements are messing with Europe.

One German cross-country ski resort is resulting to an interesting experiment in order to keep their snow from completely melting away in the summer. According to World Is One News, Obserstdorf’s ski area, located in the Allgäu Alps, has covered their large snow pile in wood chips.

Snow produced in the winter is stored in a large pile with a thick wood chip layer, preventing rainwater from getting into the snow and ensuring there’s very little air exchange between the snow and the great hot outdoors. If done properly, the area hopes the mound will only lose about 20-25% of it’s volume throughout the wet months, allowing them to open the cross-country ski tracks in early fall.

Though this technique has been tested in both Switzerland and Italy, it’s still an experiment, and final results are unknown.

Personally, I think it’s pretty sad that the world has been forced to result to techniques like this to keep the snow alive. It would definitely be a lot cooler if, I don’t know, the environment was actually where it’s supposed to be, rather than majorly messed up because of human action. But my opinion won’t affect the fact that we are where we are, and it’s pretty cool to see different active experiments going on to keep our favorite sports alive.

Image Credit: WION via YouTube

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