SkiMo: A New Olympic Sport

This month, nearly 3,000 athletes from around the world are heading to Italy. They’re competing in the 2026 Winter Olympics. Among them are athletes in a new event: ski mountaineering. It’s called SkiMo for short. SkiMo is like downhill skiing but without the ski lift. Downhill skiers take a lift up and then ski down. But ski mountaineers ski both downhill and uphill!

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SkiMo athletes ski both downhill and uphill. To stop from slipping backward as they ski up a slope, racers attach skins to the bottoms of their skis. These pieces of synthetic fabric are called skins because the first ones were made out of seal skins!

Skiing uphill is possible thanks to climbing skins. These are a carpet-like material that ski mountaineers stick to the bottoms of their skis before going uphill. Like a cat’s fur, climbing skins are smooth in one direction and rough in the other, explains Jerimy Arnold, president of the United States Ski Mountaineering Association.

Ski mountaineers orient their skins so that they glide over the snow when traveling uphill but present a rough surface to keep the ski from sliding backward. To ski down the hill, a ski mountaineer just peels off the skins before hitting the slope.

Skiing uphill is possible thanks to climbing skins. Ski mountaineers stick these to the bottoms of their skis before going uphill. They’re made of a carpet-like material. They’re smooth in one direction and rough in the other, like a cat’s fur, explains Jerimy Arnold. He’s the president of the United States Ski Mountaineering Association.

Ski mountaineers orient their skins so that they glide over the snow when traveling uphill. The rough surface in the other direction keeps the skis from sliding backward. To ski down the hill, a ski mountaineer just peels off the skins. Then they can hit the slope.

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Cameron Smith

SkiMo is thought to have originated hundreds of years ago in the mountains of Scandinavia, a region in northern Europe. “There were no ski lifts. So once people figured out they liked to slide on snow, they tried to make a very efficient way of climbing uphill,” Arnold says. The early ski mountaineers attached seal skin to the bottoms of their skis. That’s why the ski coverings used by today’s ski mountaineers are called skins, even though they are made of synthetic material now. Skiing uphill is often called “skinning.”

Cameron Smith, 30, is a member of the U.S. National SkiMo Team. He hopes to represent the U.S. in the 2026 Winter Olympics. Smith got into ski mountaineering during his first year of college in Colorado. His sister asked him to be her partner in the Grand Traverse—a 40-mile-long SkiMo race across the state—in spring of 2015. “I was just hooked on the sport and skiing in the back country,” Smith says. “I got really interested in racing from there.”

SkiMo is thought to have originated hundreds of years ago. It was first practiced in the mountains of Scandinavia, a region in northern Europe. “There were no ski lifts,” says Arnold. “So once people figured out they liked to slide on snow, they tried to make a very efficient way of climbing uphill.” Early ski mountaineers attached seal skin to the bottoms of their skis. That’s why the coverings used today are called skins, even though they’re humanmade material. Skiing uphill is often called “skinning.”

Cameron Smith, 30, is a member of the U.S. National SkiMo Team. He hopes to represent the U.S. in the 2026 Winter Olympics. Smith got into ski mountaineering during his first year of college in Colorado. His sister asked him to be her partner in a 40-mile-long SkiMo race across the state in 2015. “I was just hooked on the sport and skiing in the back country,” says Smith. “I got really interested in racing from there.”

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UPHILL CLIMB: Cross-country style skis allow racers to lift their heels as they go uphill. Lifting your heel makes uphill skiing less tiring.

In the U.S., ski mountaineers use the same slopes at resorts as downhill skiers, explains Griffin Briley. He’s a 20-year-old member of the U.S. National SkiMo Team. To avoid collisions between uphill and downhill skiers, resorts usually don’t allow uphill skiing during the day. So ski mountaineers often train at night. In Europe, on the other hand, it’s often possible to do SkiMo during the day, which Briley says is “nice for us uphill enthusiasts.”

In the U.S., ski mountaineers use the same slopes as downhill skiers. But skiers going uphill and downhill at the same time could collide. So most ski resorts don’t allow uphill skiing during the day, explains Griffin Briley. He’s a 20-year-old member of the U.S. National SkiMo Team. Ski mountaineers often train at night instead. But in Europe, it’s often possible to do SkiMo during the day. That’s “nice for us uphill enthusiasts,” says Briley.

At the Winter Games, 18 men and 18 women will compete in ski mountaineering events. To qualify, athletes compete for more than a year in SkiMo World Cup events and the International Ski Mountaineering Federation World Championships.

The 2026 Olympics will include three SkiMo races: men’s sprint, women’s sprint, and mixed relay. In the sprint events, individuals first race to the top of the mountain, skinning part of the way and then removing their skis and running up a set of stairs in their ski boots. Then they put their skis back on to ski down to the finish line. Sprint races have a vertical ascent and descent of about 230 feet and last about 3.5 minutes. In the mixed relay event, a male and a female athlete compete as a team.

At the Winter Games, 18 men and 18 women will compete in ski mountaineering. To qualify, athletes first compete for more than a year in world championship events.

The 2026 Olympics will include three SkiMo races: men’s sprint, women’s sprint, and mixed relay. In the sprint events, athletes first race to the top of the mountain. They skin part of the way. Then they take off their skis and run up a set of stairs in their ski boots. They put their skis back on to ski down to the finish line. Sprint races have a vertical climb and descent of about 230 feet. They last about 3.5 minutes. In the mixed relay event, a male and a female athlete compete as a team.

As of press time, only one Olympic-qualifying event remains: a World Cup at Solitude Mountain Resort in Brighton, Utah, scheduled for early December 2025. The results of that race will determine whether the U.S. will send a team of two ski mountaineers to the Olympics in the mixed relay category. (The U.S. did not qualify for either sprint event.) “These spots are very coveted, and it looks like the U.S. and Canada are going to battle it out for one of the final spots,” Arnold says.

Last February, Italy hosted an Olympic test event. Briley and Smith got to compete on the same course that the Olympic ski mountaineers will use at the 2026 Winter Games. It was like a rehearsal for the Olympics that doubled as a World Cup competition. “This was as close to the Olympics as we can get because it’s on the same slope, the same course, the same time of year,” Smith says. “[It was] fun to think, ‘Well, this could be how the Olympics goes,’ ” he says.

As of press time, only one Olympic-qualifying event remains. It’s scheduled for early December 2025 in Brighton, Utah. The results of that race will determine whether the U.S. sends a team to the Olympics in the mixed relay category. (The U.S. did not qualify for either sprint event.) “These spots are very coveted,” says Arnold. “It looks like the U.S. and Canada are going to battle it out for one of the final spots.”

Last February, Italy hosted an Olympic qualifying event. Briley and Smith got to compete on the same course that ski mountaineers will use at the 2026 Winter Games. “This was as close to the Olympics as we can get because it’s on the same slope, the same course, the same time of year,” says Smith. “It was fun to think, ‘Well, this could be how the Olympics goes,’ ” he says.

Write and solve two-step equations about SkiMo at the 2026 Winter Olympics. Record your work and answers on our answer sheet.

There will be 18 female SkiMo athletes competing in the Winter Olympics. That’s 6 less than 2 times the number of SkiMo athletes competing in the sprint events. Write an equation to find the number of SkiMo athletes in sprint events, using the variable e, and solve.

Italy has hosted the Winter Olympics 3 times—including this year. That’s 2 fewer than the number of years since USA SkiMo was founded. Write an equation to find the number of years since USA SkiMo was founded, using the variable f, and solve.

In the Winter Olympics sprint events, SkiMo athletes will travel a course that is 610 meters long over the ground. That’s 50 meters more than 8 times the vertical distance the SkiMo athletes will climb up—and ski down—during the course. Write an equation to find the vertical distance the ski mountaineers will travel in the sprint events, using the variable m, and solve.

U.S. ski mountaineer Griffin Briley is 20 years old. That’s 2.5 less than the vertical distance, in meters, athletes will ascend and descend in the mixed relay Olympic event divided by 6. Write an equation to find the vertical distance athletes will ascend and descend in the mixed relay, using the variable g, and solve.

Ski mountaineers wear skis that are on average 63 inches long. That’s 3 more than the average number of seconds a SkiMo racer takes to remove their skins during a race times 6. Write an equation to find the average number of seconds it takes a SkiMo racer to remove their skins, using the variable n, and solve.