Image: Kostiantyn Li, Upslash
The impact of a warming climate on climbing and trail sports
For the millions of Americans who love to get outdoors the longer days and sunny weather of summer make it a favorite season. But summer as we know it is changing. The Hot Trail Sumer, created by Protect Our Winters (POW) in collaboration with master’s students at UC Santa Barbara’s Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, examines how climate change impacts the rock climbing, trail running, hiking and mountain biking communities.
The report outlines what many of us already know: that no matter the season, a warming world has profound implications for outdoor recreation. The report comes down to three main impacts that will hinder our ability to recreate:
Threats to Access. Several climate impacts have been demonstrated to limit access to trail systems, including wildfires, erosion, extreme heat, sea-level rise and tree die-off. As global temperatures continue to rise, these five factors are increasingly expected to prevent trail sports enthusiasts from accessing the places they love.
Threats to Health. Climate change will threaten the health and well-being of those who recreate outdoors. Hotter temperatures increase the risk of heat-related illnesses such as heat exhaustion and heatstroke. Poor air quality due to wildfire smoke, increased dust levels due to drought and higher surface-level ozone concentrations mean that those who want to recreate outdoors in the summertime will face a difficult choice: stay inside and forgo the mental health benefits of recreating or get outside and risk our health by exposing ourselves to dangerous conditions.
Threats to the Experience. Climate change will diminish the experience of getting outdoors. Poor air quality, water-starved ecosystems and charred swaths of land mean that the summer landscapes we’ve come to know and love won’t look like we remember them. As a result, decreased access to recreational opportunities will concentrate crowds in places that remain open.
If these trends continue, they’ll make it harder for us to get outside during the summer months and force us to be more selective about when and where we recreate. It could even mean the permanent loss of some recreation areas. And as our options for summer recreation dwindle, the $450 billion outdoor industry that supports millions of jobs, livelihoods and families will also take a hit. This could spell disaster for the small, rural towns that rely on the outdoor recreational economy.
But, as Protect Our Winters make clear, the goal of this report is not to add to the piles of literature that tell you how climate change is negatively affecting the world—it’s to provide a common cause for summer sports enthusiasts to take action on. And that’s where organizations like Protect Our Winters can help. POW’s mission is to help passionate outdoor people—just like you—protect the places you love from climate change by connecting you with opportunities to channel your passion for the outdoors into meaningful climate action. Collectively, America’s 80 million trail sports athletes and 5 million rock climbers have the power to influence U.S. climate policy, and there’s no better time to start than now.
