The oldest known skis, found in peat bogs in Sweden and Finland, are estimated to be from 4,500 to 5,000 years old. Rock carvings of two people on skis, dating from around 2000 BC, have been found near the Arctic Circle in Norway. Skis were originally used in Scandinavia for transportation and hunting, and they have been used in military maneuvers since the 13th century.

Skiing as a form of recreation is much more recent in origin, although there is some evidence that it may have existed as early as the first half of the 18th century. One of the first recorded competitions was a cross-country ski race held in Tromsø, Norway, in 1843. The first known ski exhibition was held at Kristiansand, Norway, in 1861, and the first international competition was held near Christiania (now Oslo), Norway, in 1892. Sondre Norheim of Norway was responsible for inventing the sport of ski jumping in the 1840s; competitions began in the 1860s. Norheim was also responsible for developing the first binding that went around the heel, stabilizing the boot on the ski. An Austrian, Mathias Zdarsky, later furthered Norheim’s invention, developing the first binding suitable for downhill Alpine technique. Zdarsky was also one of the first to teach skiing, and he wrote the first methodical analysis of skiing technique. Norwegian emigration was partly responsible for the spread of Nordic skiing to the rest of the world. In the mid-1800s Norwegians traveled to Germany, North America, Australia, and New Zealand, spreading their knowledge of skiing equipment and technique. In 1890 Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen published a book describing his 1888 ski expedition across the southern tip of Greenland; this also helped popularize skiing.

As skiing spread to mainland Europe, it soon became apparent that the techniques used by the Scandinavians were unsuitable for mountainous terrain, especially in the Alps of south central Europe. Nordic techniques were therefore adapted for the steeper slopes, and Alpine skiing was born. Inspired by Nansen’s book, Christoph Iselin of Switzerland and Wilhelm Paulcke of Germany organized the first major ski tours of the Swiss Alps in the 1890s. For the first time, people on skis climbed such peaks as the Jungfrau, in Switzerland, and Mont Blanc, on the French-Italian border, often without the aid of standard mountaineering equipment.

In Europe, an interest in summer mountaineering led to the building of lodgings, cable cars, and cog railways. Centers of tourism developed along the routes of trains that crossed the Alps, with local railways running to small French and Swiss health resorts like Chamonix-Mont-Blanc, Davos, and Saint Moritz. When skiing became popular, these tourist centers simply remained open during winter. People formed ski clubs all over Europe beginning in the 1860s. Skiing was founded in the United States in the 1800s in communities where Scandinavians settled, especially in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The sport was also popular among gold miners in California, who built the first ski factory in 1854 and held downhill races. They even used a predecessor of the chairlift: They rode ore buckets up hills on a conveyor. The development of lifts in the 1930s made skiing more popular and accessible. The first rope tow in North America was installed in Shawbridge, Québec, Canada, in 1932. The first T-bar was installed in Davos, Switzerland, in 1934, and Pico, Vermont, built the first in the United States in 1940. The first single chairlift was built in Sun Valley, Idaho, in 1936. An Austrian, Rudolph Lettner, invented and patented metal ski edges in the late 1920s, originally as a means of keeping his skis from wearing out. His invention later revolutionized skiing technique by making it much easier to carve turns. American Howard Head made the first successful metal skis in 1949; the step-in Alpine binding, which enables the skier simply to step into the binding to attach it to the boot, debuted in 1950; and the continuous metal ski edge was developed in 1955. The first all-plastic boots went on sale in 1964.

An English writer and avid sportsman, Sir Arnold Lunn, organized the first major Alpine races. In 1911 he organized the Roberts of Kandahar Challenge (named after British general Lord Roberts of Kandahar), a downhill race held in Montana, Switzerland, and in 1922 he invented slalom racing and drew up the first set of rules for the sport. In collaboration with Austrian Hannes Schneider (who later started one of the first ski schools in the United States), Lunn later created the Alberg-Kandahar Race, which is considered the true starting point of international Alpine ski racing. It was first held in Saint Anton, Austria, in 1928. The Fédération Internationale de Ski (FIS) was founded in 1924. In 1930 it formally recognized Lunn’s rules, and in 1931 the FIS began holding organized competitions. Men’s Nordic events were the only skiing races held in the 1924 Olympic Games, the first year the Winter Games were held. Not until the 1950s did women participate in Nordic events in the Olympics. Women were included, however, when Alpine events were added to the Games in 1936. Gretchen Fraser was the first American skier to win Olympic medals in the Winter Games, with a gold and a silver in 1948. Lucile Wheeler took Canada’s first Winter Olympic medal, a bronze in the downhill in 1956. Anne Heggtveit won Canada’s first winter gold, in the slalom in 1960. Giant slalom joined downhill and slalom as an Olympic discipline in 1952, and super G debuted at the 1988 Games. In 1967 the FIS started the World Cup. The first freestyle competition was the North American Freestyle Skiing Championships, held in 1968 at Waterville Valley, New Hampshire. Freestyle skiing held its first official FIS World Cup season in 1984, and the first FIS Freestyle World Championships were held in 1986. The sport was a demonstration event at the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. In 1992 moguls events were added as a medal event, and aerials gained medal status in 1994.