Posted by Now, when you hike up the steps, there is a plaque every 10m showing the retreat of the glacier, and you can see how quickly it is happening.
It’s something that you can’t ignore once you’ve seen it. I have become passionate about it, but I’ll admit it’s something that took me a long time to become passionate about.
When I was a ski racer for Great Britain, I didn’t really look up at what was around me. From 1999 to 2014, I spent my life in a very selfish, vicious circle of travelling the world racing, training and then travelling again. It was about me being as fast as I could be.
It took this second time at Vallee Blanche for me to realise how the mountains are changing right in front of my eyes – and for me to really start caring.
That danger of the very immediate future is causing me to try and make the changes that I can. So many people care about the mountains, but they don’t know how to make a change.
But it’s about us all collectively trying to be more positive towards protecting our winters.
There’s hope in terms of resorts becoming powered by renewable energy, there’s hope that there are snow trains running now from London to the Alps that help you massively reduce your carbon footprint.
There’s hope in terms of what you can do. I rent my clothes, I drive an electric car, I eat less meat and this winter I used the snow train to get out to the Alps. It’s about purpose over perfection, adapting your expectations and making a few sacrifices.
I 100% fear for my sons’ future in skiing. There’s no way they could lead the life that I did as a professional skier. I used to fly to New Zealand to ski every summer, but that’s not something I’m going to encourage to my children because it’s not good for the planet.
So we’re just enjoying every moment on the snow that we can right now because we know that those moments aren’t infinite.
Watch Ski Sunday on 4 February from 17:15 GMT on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer.