国产吃瓜黑料

GET MORE WITH OUTSIDE+

Enjoy 35% off GOES, your essential outdoor guide

UPGRADE TODAY

How will our favorite natural playgrounds fare as the impacts of climate change become more pronounced?
How will our favorite natural playgrounds fare as the impacts of climate change become more pronounced? (Photo: Grant Gunderson/Tandemstock)

How Global Warming Is Changing How We Play 国产吃瓜黑料

Climate change is affecting America鈥檚 recreation meccas鈥攆rom Yosemite to Yellowstone鈥攊n profound ways. As the planet heats up and weather patterns shift, so will the ways we interact with the outdoors.

Published: 
How will our favorite natural playgrounds fare as the impacts of climate change become more pronounced?
(Photo: Grant Gunderson/Tandemstock)

New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up! .

When tens of thousands of dead trout and whitefish showed up in the Yellowstone River in mid-August, Montana鈥檚 Department of Fish, Wildlife, and Parks took the unprecedented step of to all forms of human recreation. (Some portions remain closed more than a month later.)聽The fish died of a kidney disease caused by a parasite that is more prone to appear during low flows and higher water temperatures鈥攚hich happen to be key indicators of climate change.

It was only the latest instance of how our warming planet is affecting America鈥檚 outdoor聽playgrounds. With global temperatures having now landed above average for 380 consecutive months (just shy of 22 years), it is no longer surprising to see hotter summers, meager stream flows, more desert dust, and snow thaws in the dead of winter. 鈥淲e鈥檙e mountain biking into November, and it feels like we鈥檙e spring skiing all winter long,鈥 says Ray Rasker, a 30-year Bozeman resident and executive director of , a research firm that has extensively聽studied the intersection of climate change and recreation.

鈥淚n April and May,鈥 Rasker says, 鈥渞ather than a snowpack that sits up in the mountains for a long time and feeds these rivers and streams bit by bit, we have a snowpack that gets washed off the landscape much faster. That affects drought and fires later in the summer.鈥

How will our favorite natural playgrounds fare as those impacts become more pronounced? And what can be done to mitigate them? Using climate predictions from WXShift.com and ClimateCentral.org, we analyzed five towns around the West鈥攅ach a global hub for its respective sport鈥攖o find out.

Jackson Hole: Skiing & Snowboarding

  • Mid-September average: 69 high, 31 low.
  • 2050 projection: 73, 35.
(Gabe Rogel/Aurora Photos)

At 6,200 feet elevation, steep-and-deep Jackson Hole Mountain Resort is an epicenter of climate change. The resort has seen 鈥減retty consistent snowfall and business volumes鈥 in the last decade, according to spokeswoman Anna Cole. Still, the rising snow-rain line is a concern. 鈥淛ackson Hole鈥檚 somewhat northerly latitude may provide a bit of a buffer compared to ski areas to the south,鈥 says Kelli Archie, a lecturer at the Climate Change Research Institute in New Zealand聽who聽has . 鈥淏ut lower-elevation ski areas are automatically at higher risk for seeing less snow and more rain.鈥

Archie listed a number of strategies that resorts can adopt to mitigate the effects of climate change: make more snow (which has its own environmental impacts)聽and develop new runs on north-facing aspects to avoid solar radiation; and clear current runs of rocks and stumps so they are skiable sooner and don鈥檛 require as deep a snowpack. Cole declined to say whether Jackson Hole has taken any of those steps, but the resort did announce last year it reduced its greenhouse gas emissions by more than ten percent and was taking other actions鈥攍ike replacing its gasoline vehicles with diesels, and its two-stroke snowmobiles with more efficient models鈥攖o counter the impacts of climate change.听

Moab: Mountain Biking

  • Mid-September average temperatures: 85 high, 51 low.
  • 2050 projection: 88 high, 54 low
(VisualCommunications/iStockphoto)

Moab鈥檚 slickrock is not about to crumble, but the warmer, drier, hazier days could trigger changes in how and when people ride. For starters, says Mike Duniway, a research ecologist and soil scientist with the Southwest Biological Science Center in Moab, the season will likely start earlier, remain hotter for longer in the middle of summer (which would deter riders), and some trails could be too loose and dry to ride for months at a time. But the biggest impact is the increase in red dust that gets whipped up by gusty winds and can make riding miserable.听

鈥淭he views from the trails are not what they used to be, even in the time I鈥檝e been here,鈥 says Ashley Korenblat, owner of Moab tour company Western Spirit Cycling and a 20-year resident. 鈥淭here are just fewer and fewer clear days.鈥 A 2016 study by a group of organizations including the National Park Service found the spring dust season begins one to two weeks earlier than it did 20 years ago. 鈥淲e don't know where all of it is coming from,鈥 Duniway says. 鈥淚t's likely a combination of drought and human land use.鈥

Bigger rain events have forced locals to build trails with more water bars (to prevent erosion), but other than that, there鈥檚 not much they can do to combat the changes. 鈥淚f Toyota would make a 15-passenger van that ran like a Prius,鈥 Korenblat says, 鈥渨e鈥檇 buy them tomorrow.鈥

Yosemite: Rock Climbing

  • Mid-September average: 73 high, 44 low.
  • 2050 projection: 76, 47
(Jason Thompson/Tandemstock)

Rockfall is far and away the most salient climate-change effect impacting climbers in Yosemite National Park. This past March, a study by Yosemite geologist Greg Stock and U.S. Geological Survey civil engineer Brian Collins, , showed that hotter temperatures cause more rocks to release and ultimately weaken the overall face, making rockfall more likely from traditional triggers like melt-freeze cycles and rainstorms.

鈥淲e don鈥檛 know that there鈥檚 an increased rate of rockfall or not,鈥 Stock says, since the increase in documented rockfalls, via photos and videos, could merely reflect an increase our ability to quickly notice and report them. 鈥淲e probably won鈥檛 know that for another 20 years.鈥 But, he adds, 鈥淚 think it鈥檚 at least reasonable to think that if warm temperatures are part of a trigger, then warmer temperatures might be more of a trigger.鈥

The park mapped out a rockfall hazard zone on the valley floor beginning in 2012, which gave each campsite and structure a number based on the risk it carried. Ultimately the park closed or relocated a number of buildings and moved a handful of campsites from one side of Camp 4, the hub of climbing in the park, to the other.听

Truckee: Whitewater Rafting

  • Mid-September average: 74 high, 33 low.
  • 2050 projection: 77, 36
(OwensImaging/iStockphoto)

May 14 was a big day in the whitewater rafting world on California鈥檚 Truckee River. After sitting out the 2015 season due to the drought, outfitters led their first trips since being shut down July 29, 2014 (which was two months earlier than usual).听

This summer ended up providing the biggest water in years. Even still, halfway through the season, Tributary Whitewater Tours, one of the original operators to guide the Truckee, dropped its capacity from six people per boat to five, to avoid scraping bottom in the low river. Eventually the Reno Water Master shut down the river on September 6, three weeks earlier than normal.听

As a boater, you can鈥檛 do much more than hope it rains鈥攐r better yet, hope it snows. Then hope the snowpack doesn鈥檛 all melt at once.

Missoula: Fly Fishing

  • Mid-September average: 70 high, 41 low.
  • 2050 projection: 74, 45.
(Brandon McMahon/Tandemstock)

Missoula, a town at 3,200 feet elevation near the junction of the Clark Fork and Bitterroot rivers in Montana, currently sees 166 below-freezing nights each year. By 2100, that number is expected to drop to 67. Likewise, right now the average summer temperature is 80 degrees, but by 2100 it is predicted to be 92. None of this is good for fly fishermen.

鈥淲e鈥檝e seen big changes in the past five or so years, especially in the last three,鈥 says Rick Marcum, outfitting manager at Grizzly Hackle Fly Shop. 鈥淩unoff is a lot shorter; the springs are a lot warmer. So instead of having six weeks of runoff, we鈥檒l have three weeks. Which means the stonefly and mayfly hatches happen two to three weeks earlier. Because of that, we鈥檙e starting the fishing in the beginning of June.鈥

Afternoons in mid- to late summer have grown so hot that there is hardly any water in the Bitterroot River鈥攁t a time that used to be prime fishing season. This year, the state required anglers to be off the water by 2 p.m. 鈥淚f you catch trout in 70-degree water, you鈥檙e going to hurt 鈥檈m or kill 鈥檈m,鈥 Marcum says. There is one plus, though. Even at peak runoff, the water stays clear so you can keep fishing.听

Popular on 国产吃瓜黑料 Online