section_path: Effects on civilization/Sports and recreation
section_name: Sports and recreation
paragraph_text: Sports and recreation
  
  Snow figures into many winter sports and forms of recreation, including skiing and sledding. Common examples include cross-country skiing, Alpine skiing, snowboarding, snowshoeing, and snowmobiling. The design of the equipment used, e.g. skis and snowboards, typically relies on the bearing strength of snow and contends with the coefficient of friction bearing on snow.
  
  Skiing is by far the largest form of winter recreation. As of 1994, of the estimated 65–75 million skiers worldwide, there were approximately 55 million who engaged in Alpine skiing, the rest engaged in cross-country skiing. Approximately 30 million skiers (of all kinds) were in Europe, 15 million in the US, and 14 million in Japan. As of 1996, there were reportedly 4,500 ski areas, operating 26,000 ski lifts and enjoying 390 million skier visits per year. The preponderant region for downhill skiing was Europe, followed by Japan and the US.
  
  Increasingly, ski resorts are relying on snowmaking, the production of snow by forcing water and pressurized air through a snow gun on ski slopes. Snowmaking is mainly used to supplement natural snow at ski resorts. This allows them to improve the reliability of their snow cover and to extend their ski seasons from late autumn to early spring. The production of snow requires low temperatures. The threshold temperature for snowmaking increases as humidity decreases. Wet-bulb temperature is used as a metric since it takes air temperature and relative humidity into account. Snowmaking is a relatively expensive process in its energy consumption, thereby limiting its use.
  
  Ski wax enhances the ability of a ski (or other runner) to slide over snow by reducing its coefficient of friction, which depends on both the properties of the snow and the ski to result in an optimum amount of lubrication from melting the snow by friction with the ski—too little and the ski interacts with solid snow crystals, too much and capillary attraction of meltwater retards the ski. Before a ski can slide, it must overcome the maximum value static friction. Kinetic (or dynamic) friction occurs when the ski is moving over the snow.