our trail

 

There is a trail behind us. A track that is shaped through centuries. It bears testimony to our values.​ The joy within sports, community and health. 
The tracks is shaped by skiing and snow. Inseparable from our national identity. Its a part of our 
heritage and our peoples soul. The track is located there. 

It goes through city and country. It leads out into the countryside and into the soul. It is there if we seek the ground teeming with life or natures silence. 
It is there for everyone. For large and small,
old and young. 
For those who want to win and for those who just want to rejoice. The track is full of skiing. Without skiing pleasure, there is no skiing. No winners in search of gold. No spectators on the slopes. No hikers in the forest. No children on the slopes. It is a track in front of us. Also in the next centuries, we will see it filled by many skiers. Good skiers. Happy skiers. That puts a trace.

Jørgen Insulán

positive development

• The winter 09/10 was extraordinary. Southern Norway experienced the most consistent winter in decades, with snow and cold for over four months. There was reports of large ski-activities in places that had not had a winter in many years, and the sports industry had sold a record number of pairs of skis. That winter may have lit the interest for skiing for many people, and created expectations of increased recruitment to the ski-sport in densely populated areas. Winter in the northern part of Norway was however containing little snow, and skiing was slow going in many places.
• The great races have experienced unprecedented participation. 
• We are in a trend where skiing as recreation and exercise are perhaps more popular than ever. This is a basic and important prerequisite for  maintaining the position of skiing in Norway.
• IN 2006 chairman in the Norwegian National Association for skiresorts Trond H. Østby said; Figures from different skiresorts indicate a growth of 7% lift in turnover for the Norwegian skiresorts. With an expected inflation of about 4%, this gives a volume growth of 3 %, measured in number of ski days. An unusally good snow winter in areas around the densely populated parts of the eastern area has contributed to a great visit to the small and large ski-facilities in the areas around Oslo and the eastern region of the country. This will undoubtely contribute to increased interest in skiing in the coming years and hopefully show increased recruitment within alpine-activities.
• http://www.alpinanleggene.no/

Jungfraujoch, Switzerland

how to live a little, shown by Eric Hjortleifson

photographer Walter Niedermayr

The Italian-based photographer Walter

 Niedermayr is concerned

 with extending the potential of a single

 image in his work, a picture is allowed to

 unfold as a series of fragments.

 He takes pictures in the openness of a lonely alpine landscape or in the tightly controlled, cramped conditions of a closed institution, the concrete topographical references in his pictures always evaporate. Characterized by a diffuse light that illuminates spaces and colors, stretched between the visible and the invisible, his photographs reveal the various subtle qualities of spaces, from sober eeriness to poetic delimitation. The artist confronts the viewer with the expansive imagery of a photographic series that has neither beginning nor end, offering views of space as seen through the life of passengers and inmates, hospital workers and waiting room attendants. 

SANAA has cooperated with Niedermayr, to pursues an abstract approach to the investigation of space. They combine forces in Walter Niedermayrs photographs of SANAAs architecture, which avoid sensationalism and drama in favor of helping the viewer develop a sense of architectures possibilities, the essentials of space and the relativity of the visible. Photographs alongside plans show how the monolithic and the fragmentary, the hermetic and the porous, the amorphous and the solid contribute to SANAAs ever-shifting atmospheres.

worlds first wind-powered ski resort

A ski resort in New England in the US is using a 84 meter tall wind turbine to generate 2.2 million kWh of electricity every year, selling the excess energy to the nearby town of Charlemont.

According to the resorts manager, Roy Schaefer, that generation equates to a saving of over 1,400 tons of greenhouse gases every year, the equivalent of driving a car 2 million fewer miles or planting 85,000 trees annually.

Although the turbine was nearly three years in planning and cost approximately 22 millions nkr to install, Berkshire Easts project could become a model for other resorts to generate their own power - PowerWind, the German firm that manufactured the turbine, says that it will further expand its business with communities like this one in the coming years.

Its another example of how resorts and hotels are trying to green their act in an attempt to attract environmentally-minded vacationers who want to be able to holiday with a conscience.

This has led to some creative ideas, such as those from conceptual "green" artist Michael Jantzen, who has designed high-profile sun- and wind-powered desert hotels and ski resorts to showcase how alternative energy could be used in luxury facilities.

Jantzen told Green Lodging News last month that his North Slope Ski Hotel idea generated a bigger media reaction than anything he has ever done, and although finding developers to execute his futuristic projects appears to be proving tricky, it seems the tourism industry is beginning to incorporate green power in its buildings.

Last year, Crowne Plaza opened what it claimed was the worlds greenest hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark, which featured a groundwater-based cooling and heating system, solar panels which covered the building and even gym bikes that are hooked up to generators.

Travel and tourism association Skål backed up its claim in October at its annual ecotourism awards, bestowing the title of the worlds greenest hotel on the property.