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Unrelated (other than the quite relevant fact that I used reader contributions to pay Tabby for writing this article, because you should pay people for their time): The author of this piece, Tabitha Williams, is a third-year skier on the University of Alaska Fairbanks ski team. She currently lives in Canmore, but was born in London and represents Great Britain in international competition.
By Tabitha Williams
Competing in a cut-off short-sleeve race suit, Rosie Fordham took home two national titles at 2026 NCAA Skiing Championships in Utah last month. The redshirt senior at the University of Alaska Fairbanks won both nordic races, the 7.5-kilometer interval-start classic and 20km mass start skate, as the temperatures at Soldier Hollow Nordic Ski Center hit a high of 59 degrees Fahrenheit over the championship weekend, March 12 to 14.
“It was so hot, I was actually sweating, even in my short-sleeve race suit,” Fordham said. “It felt like summer.” The Australian native has a lot of experience training in hot temperatures, which she said must have helped her push through the heat in Soldier Hollow.
“I’ve raced in 17 degrees Celsius (62 degrees Fahrenheit) before, so I do think I have a bit of an advantage when it comes to the hot weather, just because I’ve grown up in those conditions,” Fordham mused.
However, not everyone could boast this level of heat acclimatization. One athlete in the women’s race, who Fordham said was in her sights during the first couple of laps, passed out from heat exhaustion.
“I could see her, and then all of a sudden she wasn’t there,” Fordham shared.
The athlete ended up pulling out of the race due to the intense heat.
In Fairbanks, the UAF ski team trains in the cold on slow snow. But these days, the team is increasingly having to learn how to train and race in warm temperatures and in slushy snow.
“Our team is definitely not heat-adapted,” said UAF Nanooks ski team coach Ben Buck.
This year Regionals for the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association, or RMISA, were also held at Soldier Hollow, in late February. UAF skiers spent the intervening two weeks in the Lower 48, largely to adapt to the high temperatures.
“Between the heat and high altitude, it could have been a very challenging week for us,” Buck said of racing NCAAs at an altitude of roughly 1,700 meters (5,600 feet), “but we prepared well, and it paid off.”
Soldier Hollow Nordic Ski Center, located in the town of Midway, Utah, was the cross-country skiing venue for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, and is currently set to host races again in 2034. This season, race courses at Soho were almost entirely manmade snow, due to persistent warm temps and lack of snowfall in much of the mountain west, including Utah.
At both RMISA Regionals and NCAA Championships, athletes competed on a 2.5-kilometer loop of manmade snow surrounded by bare ground. Skiers completed three laps for the 7.5km on the opening day of racing at NCAAs, and eight laps for the 20km two days later.
This Instagram embed, while primarily showcasing Fordham’s dominant victory in the 20km skate, gives a sense for what that felt like on the ground.
The RMISA division of NCAA skiing primarily races in Montana, Utah, and Colorado, with an Alaskan swing currently featuring on the RMISA race calendar every other year. But The Last Frontier may become a more frequent destination going forward, with the increase in race cancellations and relocations due to snow melt.
“I do think the reliability of snow in Alaska could prove a great asset for the future,” said Buck. “Especially during the championship season in March when temperatures in Fairbanks and Anchorage are most likely to be race legal.”
Fairbanks is home to a new FIS-homologated race course on the UAF campus that opened last year, which Buck helped design.
Soldier Hollow was actually a last-minute pivot for this year’s championships. Originally, the event was to be held at Crosscut Mountain Sports Center, located just outside of Bozeman, Montana; official FIS results for Fordham’s victory still site the race in Montana. However, due to a lack of snow in Bozeman, the nordic events were moved to Soldier Hollow, and the downhill events to nearby Park City.
In Montana, the lack of snow wasn’t just a blow for the NCAA athletes. It was also an economic hit to the Bozeman community, which relies on winter sports tourism that can typically thrive during March. As of March 2026, OpenSnow weather reported 23 inches of total snowfall in the area since October 1, 2025.
“Crosscut had around three kilometers max of trails, mostly ice or slush conditions,” said a local Bozeman athlete of the winter that largely wasn’t. “We had a couple good days for sure but they were far and few between.” She said her team spent a lot of time driving two hours to West Yellowstone for key sessions on snow.
“Even they had really thin coverage and had to stop grooming around mid March,” she added.
As a result of the lack of snowfall, Crosscut was forced to cancel five race events this winter, losing out on money made from selling trail passes and lift tickets to the nearby Bridger Bowl. The sports center was closed to the public during the second week of March, with efforts made by the trail crew to maintain what little snow was left.
As for the fate of the future Olympic venues in and around Salt Lake City, the state has been facing the effects of global warming, specifically a drought as a result of the lack of snowfall.
The Utah Snow Survey reported a record-low snowpack and a record-low snow water equivalent statewide for January 2026. Snowpack is the total accumulated depth of snow on the ground, while snow water equivalent (SWE) is the amount of liquid water that that snowpack would yield if it were completely melted.
In January, the statewide snow water equivalent was at 5.1 inches, just below the lowest previous record of 5.2 inches.
“In Utah, 95 percent of our water supply comes from snowpack,” said Michael Sanchez, spokesman at the Utah Division of Water Resources. “We think of it as our largest reservoir. So we’re really looking at that snowpack to build up during the winter, because when it melts, it makes its way into our streams, and then eventually our reservoirs.”
Measuring SWE allows the Division of Water Resources to predict how much water will reach reservoirs for drinking, irrigation, and power. Measuring SWE is also crucial for safety, as it helps scientists predict flood risks from rapid snowmelt as a result of a rapid increase in temperature.
“In Utah, we have this phrase that we’re either in drought or preparing for the next one. We’re very much in drought and also preparing for if this happens next year,” said Sanchez. “If we have multiple years of this low snowpack water supply, then that’s not good.”
As of the beginning of March, snowpack in Utah is well below normal at 61 percent of the median, compared to 86 percent at this time last year.
“We have the greatest snow on earth,” said Sanchez. “At least that’s what our license plates say. This year, the snow just didn’t come down.”
The Utah Division of Water Resources is already involved in infrastructure planning for the 2034 Winter Olympic Games to ensure that snowmaking demands won’t affect the municipal needs for the water supply.
“We’ve begun conversations with the Olympic Committee,” said Sanchez. “Our meteorologist has been trying to chat with them about cloud seeding and how we can potentially use that to make more water.”
Cloud seeding is a weather modification technique that is used to increase rainfall and combat droughts. Crucially, it does not create clouds, but rather only enhances existing ones.
“The troubling thing with cloud seeding is we need actual storms in order to do the cloud seeding, and we just aren’t getting those storms,” Sanchez said.
Despite the lack of natural snow this year, Soldier Hollow used snowmaking equipment to ensure a reliable snowpack throughout the season.
“Soldier Hollow has done a good job of cornering the market on snowmaking in the West,” said Buck. However, snow cannons typically need temperatures below freezing to make snow, which hindered Soldier Hollow for much of the winter. In addition, with the ongoing drought already straining Utah’s water reserves, snowmaking, which requires up to 200,000 gallons of water to cover one acre with one foot of snow, is not so high up on the priority list.
Indeed, notwithstanding the venue’s success in letting NCAA Championships occur, Soldier Hollow announced its early end to the winter season just a few weeks later. One casualty was U.S. Biathlon Senior Nationals, which had been scheduled for the venue for March 26.
“Come enjoy the spring skiing and celebrate a scrappy season with us!” Soldier Hollow wrote in a mid-March Instagram post announcing that trails would close for the spring at noon on March 22. “Thank you to everyone who has skied at the Hollow this winter. We appreciate you!”
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