The French ski areas are closing en masse – this is what it looks like in Switzerland. These 12 spectacular photos show the volcanic eruption in Iceland

La Sambuy is a beautiful family ski area with a view of Mont Blanc. Or more precisely: was. Skiing is a thing of the past in La Sambuy. The chairlift and the three ski lifts will soon be dismantled. “They stand still most of the time and only serve our budget,” Mayor Jacques Dalex told CH Media. “The entire operation generates an annual deficit of 500,000 euros, of which 80,000 euros is attributable to the chairlift. This must end now.”

The friendly mayor says that the area south of Lac d’Annecy was once white from early December to late March. But that hasn’t been the case for a long time. Last winter, the La Sambuy chairlift only operated for five weeks and the slopes were strewn with stones. “It is not worth maintaining the entire infrastructure of a ski area,” Dalex regrets.

A local association is still fighting against the dismantling of the ski lifts. He proposes various measures that should generate money, including the introduction of parking fees. But Dalex waves it away: this solution is “not feasible” given the chronic lack of snow. Of the six slopes – green to black – none start above 1,850 meters. That’s not high enough.

Dalex is therefore looking for “a new model of sustainable tourism”, with an emphasis on summer activities; In winter, depending on the snow cannons, cross-country skiing or snow walks are offered. The chairlift is expected to be dismantled in the spring.

120,000 jobs threatened

La Sambuy, which is administratively part of the 7,000-resident community of Faverges, is not the only French ski resort to close its cable cars and slopes due to global warming. Last year, Saint-Firmin dismantled its chairlift in the Hautes-Alpes department. Today the village is one of the “stations fantômes”, the ghost stations. On the website where these are listed you will also find larger facilities such as the former alpine winter ski resort of Saint-Honoré 1500, which was located at 1500 meters but is now just an ugly concrete ruin.

The same has happened to 150 ski resorts in France in recent years. These are often smaller, lower places in the Jura, the Pyrenees, but also in the Alps. Sometimes communities are so deeply in debt that they do not even have the resources to dismantle winter sports facilities. The French organization Mountain Wilderness has counted 106 abandoned ski lifts throughout the country. Piles of iron or concrete, masts and cables, former houses and huts stood in the open air, rusting or waiting to be removed, the organization wrote.

The science portal Nature Climate Change calculated in August that of the 2,235 ski areas in Europe, 53 percent had a “very high risk” of a chronic snow shortage if temperatures rose by two degrees as expected due to global warming. Stations around 1000 meters above sea level are particularly affected. Of the 203 Swiss ski areas, a third would have a “very high risk of snow shortage” if temperatures rise by two degrees.

The figures from ‘Nature Climate Change’ suggest that Switzerland would be affected in the same way as France. Of the 584 French ski resorts in France, a third (200 ski resorts) are also at risk – with serious consequences for the labor market: today, in addition to those hired only for the season, around 120,000 permanent workers earn their living in the ski sector. resorts.

Prestige resorts at high altitude such as Courchevel or Megève, like the corresponding Swiss top addresses, come out of the situation better. “But they will no longer be able to function as they do now,” warns Samuel Morin, researcher at Météo-France.

The ski season will start later in the future

In Switzerland, too, according to a 2022 study, 40 percent of the once open ski areas – some of which consisted of only one lift – have already disappeared from the map. For several reasons, but lack of snow is an important one.

According to an analysis by the Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research (SLF), a large majority of stations in Switzerland show “a clear decrease in the number of days with snow-covered ground,” regardless of altitude and location. By the end of the century, the ski season will start half a month to a month later than today. Only above 2,500 meters is there enough natural snow to operate a ski area profitably.

This is also bad news for Switzerland. But depending on the region, there are major differences when it comes to altitude and therefore snow certainty. According to data from the Swiss Cable Car Association, the average altitude of ski areas in Eastern Switzerland is 1,150 metres, in the Jura at 1,200 metres, in Central Switzerland at 1,300 meters and in the Bernese Oberland at 1,350 metres. The destinations Graubünden and Valais, which are on average 1,900 and over 2,000 meters above sea level, have better maps.