UKC

My personal experience is that ski touring is growing in popularity year by year, and that growth has accelerated in the last few years. But I'm looking for some objective proof of that. Anyone got any suggestions of what proof I could look for and where I could find it?

In reply to Cathy:

You could look into how many Alpine huts now are open throughout the winter months where once they'd be closed and unmanned.

In reply to Cathy:
How about sales of touring bindings? Surely after correcting for people who are replacing gear they already have, you could get an idea of growth? Call dynafit and see how much their sales are growing. The explosion of companies offering touring bindings would also point to growth in the industry. Plum, La Sportiva, Marker, Scott, Salomon, etc... in addition to the traditional players.
Bindings would be better to look at than boots etc.. because you need bindings but some bindings will accept either normal alpine boots or touring boots.

In reply to Cathy:

you could ask wildsnow for their visitor stats in the last few years.

In reply to Cathy:

you could take your counter up beinn macduibh or even coire raibeirt in a couple months time, that should be proof enough

In reply to Cathy:

Ask Eagle ski club about membership number trends?

In reply to Graham:
Growth in the number of companies offering touring bindings is a good one, given that actual sales numbers are not easy to come by.

In reply to Seocan:

I live in Andorra. This winter our biggest ski resort has put in 5 ski-touring tracks within the resort to get the tourers (going uphill) off the pistes. The growth is hard to miss!

In reply to OwenM:
That's a clever idea but sounds like a serious amount of work to do!

In reply to Cathy:

I've just compared numbers in the oldest Eagle Ski Club year book (1998) which gives 630 members, this year its about double that. I'll leave it to someone else to see whether the increase was gradual or mostly recent

In reply to Cathy:


You could try the various Alpine clubs rather that the individual huts.

In reply to Doug:

meant to say the oldest yearbook I have - it's been published for much longer. (left it to long to be able to edit)

In reply to Cathy:
Why do you need/want to prove this out of curiosity?

In reply to Cathy:

If your speak to companies like Mount Boot (Scarpa distributor), they will tell you that their sales of touring boots have grown significantly in recent years.

We have twice as many people on off piste and ski touring courses/trips than we did 5 years ago. And we've been offering ski touring since the late '90s.

In reply to Doug:
I got the actual figures from the Eagles (I am a member) - lovely graph of year-on-year growth for the last 15 years.

In reply to Tom Briggs:
Thanks! That's a great little bit of info.

In reply to craigloon:

I have an idea.... And to 'sell' the idea I need some data a bit more solid than just 'in my opinion'. I think I've got enough now. We shall see!

In reply to Cathy:
Proof that ski touring is growing / has grown??
I would say the arrival of 'marketing terms like 'skimo' and 'freerando' is proof enough...!

In reply to earlsdonwhu:

As an example from the last 10 years.

2004 - 810
2009 -1076
2014 - 1270