HOW TECHNOLOGY WILL CONTINUE TO CHANGE SKIING

Every year, the ski industry brings us new innovations. Resorts switch their snowcats to biodiesel, backcountry huts get solar panels and LED lights, goggles get digital displays, gondola cabins spin 360 degrees, the list goes on. Technology is the marquee work of humans; and oh the amazing things we’ve done with it. As we ride out of the post-industrial era and into one augmented by our species’ ingenuity, futurists have made all kinds of predictions, such as CRISPR gene editing will let you live forever, or humanity will upload its consciousness to the singularity. For a skier, though, not much is more exciting than the tech that makes sliding down snow more easy, frequent, or fun. So buckle up, because we’re going to the future. Here’s Forecast’s predictions of the biggest game-changing technologies we’re likely to see in the next 10 years. —MATT COTÉ, ASSOCIATE EDITOR

• Chairlifts will be replaced by drones, with a 97 per cent success rate.
• Goggles will become obsolete when our eyes are replaced by GoPros.
• The e-bike controversy will be eclipsed by the e-skin controversy.
• Ski companies will have so much data they’ll be able to clone you, but won’t, because skiers are broke.
• Earth’s axis will tilt suddenly, fixing global warming in Canada, and bucking Trump off the planet—into a solar flare.
• The work week will shrink to 26 hours, all in one day, so you can ski the other nine days a week.
• Boots won’t be necessary for ski touring once tech inserts are implanted directly in our feet.
• Companies won’t build skis anymore, they’ll grow them from stem cells.
• Arc’teryx will bring back MC Hammer’s pants, in plutonium-powered Gore-Tex.
• Artificial intelligence won’t take over ski resorts, or the world, because lifties will introduce it to weed.
• Elon Musk will figure out how to rebuild glaciers, then go mad and become Mr. Freeze, and Batman will take him down.
• Somehow, Candide Thovex will keep getting better.
• The Olympics will be compelled to accept rocket-ski ballet—a revival discipline, with a modern twist.
• A Slovenian doctor will synthesize unbreakable replacement ACLs from wild boar scrotum.
• Once the whales are gone, Norwegian skiers will harvest keto diet practitioners for their blubber.
• The imperative to ski freely between countries will finally create a post-nation world, and solve the migrant crisis.
• Women will assume every important role in the ski industry, and fix everything.
• Sex bots made to satiate all male urges will not stop Australian men from peacocking at the bar.
• Someone will finally make an app to find your friends on a pow day, but no one will use it.