China’s ski industry is thriving. Driven by national policy, heavy investment, and a surge of new participants following the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the country is experiencing sustained, rapid growth across nearly every metric tied to winter sports.
Industry reports from the 2024-25 season show skier visits reaching roughly 26 million, up about 13 percent year over year, continuing the double-digit rebound that followed China’s pandemic reopening. The country now operates roughly 740-750 ski resorts—more than any nation in the world. That total includes 66 indoor centers, with visits to indoor slopes surpassing 5.5 million last winter, or more than one-fifth of all skier visits nationwide, according to a China Ski Industry White Paper 2024 report.
The expansion is broad: China’s commercial ski market reached an estimated 12 billion yuan in 2023 ($1.66 billion USD), about double its size in 2018. Government plans now project an ice-and-snow economy of 1.2 trillion yuan ($165.6 billion USD) by 2027, and as much as 1.5 trillion yuan ($207 billion USD) by 2030, after the country met its high-profile Olympic goal of engaging 300 million people in winter sports.
Against that backdrop, the country’s far northwest is beginning to capture global freeride attention. And that is where 28-year-old Austrian professional skier Tao Kreibich found himself this November for a week in Hemu Village, deep in the Altay Mountains of Xinjiang.
“We didn’t know what to expect”
Kreibich and his crew flew from Beijing to Altay, then drove four hours into the mountains, unsure of what they would find.
“We didn’t know what to expect. We had pretty much no clue,” he told me over a FaceTime call. “I saw a couple of videos, and I knew they have snow pretty early. And yeah, now we just wanted to see the Chinese side, because they built this ski resort like two, three years ago.”
What he found was a developing freeride destination with a vertical drop of around 4,000 feet, peaks rising to over 9,000 feet, and consistent early-season snow that held its quality in the region’s cold, dry climate.
“It’s better than many resorts I’ve seen all over the world,” he said. “Yeah, it’s big, big potential.”
Powder, cliffs, and empty lines
Because most skiers stayed on groomed trails, Kreibich and his local partners found days of untouched terrain.
“The snow stays good forever,” he said. “Basically it snowed five or ten centimeters during the night, so almost nothing, but with the wind it was always like 20 or 30 in some place, and nobody was skiing it.”
He was stunned by the natural terrain features.
“I found tons of cliffs. I mean, there are tons of really nice cliffs with good takeoffs to do some tricks off. I was really not expecting that.”
Despite fencing around certain zones, locals routinely ducked ropes—just “not right in front of the ski patrol,” he said—revealing a freeride culture forming its own rules, similar to Europe where certain zones may be roped off but visitors duck them at their own risk.
A village in transition
Hemu, historically a Kazakh and Tuva settlement, is now in the middle of an enormous construction boom. Kreibich described the surreal contrast between the traditional wooden houses and the new development at the base of the resort.
“At the bottom of the resort they’re building huge hotels,” he said. “We counted the cranes…they had like 33 cranes around the bottom area of the resort.”
The expansion shows national trends firsthand: authorities aim to reach about 1,000 ski resorts by 2030, supported by more than 900 domestic winter-sports equipment manufacturers, up from around 300 in 2015.
Navigating borders—and the backcountry
Hemu sits close to the borders with Kazakhstan, Russia, and Mongolia, and that proximity creates another layer of complexity.
“You have to be a little careful with border police,” Kreibich said. On one outing, a local guide urged the group to climb back toward the resort rather than ski to the valley floor. “Other guys followed our tracks and went all the way down to the bottom even though our guide told them not to. And after—yeah, they were in the back of the police car.”
A young ski culture and remarkable hospitality
Though the region still has a limited freeride tradition, Kreibich said the enthusiasm among young Chinese skiers was unmistakable.
“It really felt like we clicked after one or two days,” he said. “Just friends and cruising around. And a lot of time on the translator.”
The cultural exchange became the heart of the trip.
“The hospitality was insane,” he said. “They invited us every day for dinner and they didn’t let us pay for the first three dinners.”
Part of the experience, he added, was seeing the gap between Western perceptions of China and his lived reality.
“Here in Austria, at least, China is always bad in the news. But the people here are just so nice and exactly the same as us—just wanting to go ski every day and eat good food and party.”
A futuristic contrast and surprisingly low costs
Kreibich noted the hyper-modern infrastructure he encountered throughout the trip.
“China is living 10 or 20 years in the future,” he said. “Everything is so new and modern. You do everything with your phone.”
Despite long travel distances and expensive flights from Europe, he described the trip as affordable once inside the country. “Hotels were like $20 to 40 per night and food is between $2 and $7 [a meal]. Then the ski pass is about $55 [a day].”
Breaking down barriers
Though Kreibich believes the region will eventually draw international visitors, he said many skiers outside China hesitate because of language barriers and political perceptions. His experience, however, made him see the destination differently.
“For me, it was one of my favorite trips ever,” he said. “I want to encourage people to think outside the box.”
He believes the future of global skiing includes places like Hemu, where new terrain, new cultures, and new communities come together through a shared love of snow.
“Skiing was kind of overcoming that language barrier,” he said. “After one or two days we were all friends.”
How to do it yourself
Reaching Hemu requires a flight to Altay and a four-hour drive, and visitors should expect a mix of modern infrastructure and remote-mountain conditions. Traveling with locals or experienced guides is essential near border zones. Translating apps are crucial, and mobile-payment systems dominate daily transactions. Certain apps are mandatory to navigate Chinese society for paying and booking accommodation and should be downloaded beforehand (more info on apps here).
But the reward, Kreibich emphasized, is a skiing experience unlike anywhere else.
“For me, it’s not just about the skiing,” he said. “It’s experiencing a culture, experiencing a new place—the trips where you don’t know what to expect stay in your mind the longest.”
