Lack of snow leaves Swiss Alpine villages facing an identity crisis

SATTEL, Switzerland – It was the last thing ski resort manager Simon Bissig wanted to see as he entered his guest house in the Swiss Alps one day in January.

The bright wooden house should have been packed with parents sipping hot drinks as they encouraged their children to slide down the slopes.

Instead it was empty, and instead of frosted windows, the glass was rattled by to rain.

An unusual crisis session was taking place in the place where the guests were to dine.

Marketing consultants were revising plans for what had become an existential problem:

What could you do with a ski resort without enough snow?

“I think we have to see that something is dying,” said Michelle Furrer, the manager of the guesthouse, which is on the same slope as the ski resort, Sattel-Hochstuckli, operated by Bissig.

“We have to accept that, and then we can try to build: find something else.”

Resort employees and many residents of the resort of Sattel, just under 50 kilometers from Zurich, struggle to recognize that ski days can be counted.

As the planet warms, Europe has faced a year of climate crises.

In the summer, many regions experienced severe drought and record heat.

Some areas saw their highest winter temperatures this year, so hot that many ski resorts didn’t even get snow.

For Switzerland, whose glaciers and snowpack are a crucial reservoir for thethe water supply in Europe, the effect was particularly alarming.

The country is warming more than twice the global average and its glaciers they lost 6% of its volume in just the past year, according to Swiss federal authorities and a glacier monitoring group.

The changes pose a risk to parts of the Swiss ski industry, which by some estimates generates around $5.5 billion a year.

But in a country where almost everyone skis, snow loss isn’t just an economic or environmental danger.

It’s a threat to National identity.

“Skiing here was a bit like the village sport,” says Bissig.

“And you feel that, little by little, it is diminishing. It is very sad.”

For years, people in places like Sattel, where the highest peaks reach 1,500 meters above sea level, thought they’d be spared the worst snow losses.

Now, climatologists say places below 5,000 feet will likely face a future without snow if the current heating rate is maintained.

According to a recent study, even the highest areas could survive as tourist destinations only with the help of artificial snow, which consumes lots of energy and water.

When recent temperatures made even fake snow difficult, social media was flooded with videos of crowds of tourists skiing down narrow swathes of fake snow on verdant Alpine slopes.

Local tabloids have criticized desperate measures by Swiss resorts such as bringing snow by helicopter and offering alternative leisure activities such as hiking with goats.

Last week, a new wave of precipitation heralded weeks of snowier ski resorts in the Upper Alps.

But the problems didn’t end there. Sattel-Hochstuckli, which by now averaged 12-16 inches of snow, has only 2 inches, and much of that is washed away by the rain.

In Sattel-Hochstuckli, Bissig has opened the summer slides for the Christmas tourist season.

Elsewhere in Sattel, residents are developing strategies tourist throughout the year.

For decades, Herrenboden, a rustic log cabin nestled between the slopes, had been a winter chalet.

But Silvan and Julia Betschart, who run it, have transformed this three-generation family-run hotel and restaurant – decked out in sheepskins and deer antlers – into a year-round destination, catering to hikers in the warmer months. hot.

Silvan Betschart refuses to let the warm winter scare him and remains skeptical that climate change is the root cause.

“We’ve had bouts of tough winters,” she says.

“I was born in a winter without snow, and this year my daughter too. The snow returns.”

But climate scientists say there is a clear snow fall.

“Statistically, it’s a super strong pattern:

We have more and more years with less snow,” says Sabine Rumpf, professor of environmental sciences at the University of Basel.

His team carried out satellite searches showing that almost 10% of the snowpack was lost in the summer months in Alpine regions located 1,500 meters above sea level.

Sonia Seneviratne, from the Institute of Atmospheric and Climate Sciences in Zurich, said last summer was particularly worrying as some glaciers lost up to 6 meters of ice.

Unless world leaders act to limit warming to a threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius, deterioration will accelerate.

“At best, winters like this repeat themselves from time to time.

“The worst-case scenario is, in the future, this looks like a really good winter.”

Alternatives

Operators of Swiss ski resorts that use artificial snow are angering critics for their sometimes energy-intensive efforts to cope with snow shortages.

Gstaad, a popular ski destination between Geneva and Bern, faced derogatory headlines and criticism from Green Party politicians for days after using a helicopter to transport snow and cover a rain-soaked ski slope.

Matthias In-Albon, CEO of Gstaad, said the route is vital in keeping many mountain trails connected, and many places in Alpine areas use helicopters year-round to deliver food and supplies.

A snow rig was “fabulous,” he agreed, but the bigger problem was customer expectations in the modern age of mass tourism.

In previous decades, In-Albon said, skiers accepted that vacation trips were at the mercy of time.

“People used to find stones on the trail from time to time, or not all trails were open at Christmas,” he said.

“Today, guests expect all slopes to be open at Christmas. If you don’t, customers will book in another destination“.

In the Alps, rural mountain communities have become addicted to such an activity, he said, working in ski lifts and hotels to supplement farming or other traditional incomes for the rest of the year.

“We have a microeconomy here that works, thanks to winter tourism,” In-Albon said.

The economic impact is already being felt in Sattel-Hochstuckli, where Bissig said the resort could lose half of its profits this year if not enough snow falls.

Furrer, the pension manager, has allowed guests to cancel their reservations.

Most of the hotel rooms are empty and she dreads morning calls to her staff.

“I have to call them and tell them: ‘Don’t come, we don’t have enough customers,'” he explains.

“It broke my heart.”

You applied for government subsidies for employees when a company is in trouble.

Sporting events have also been affected.

In the German Alps, the Alpine Ski World Cup has canceled some events because unseasonable winter rains had ruined the prepared slopes.

In the Bavarian town of Ruhpolding, tourism director Gregor Matjan has helped the town salvage its long-standing tradition of the Biathlon World Cup, a race that mixes cross-country skiing with rifle shooting.

This year, biathlon participants slipped through the mud to watch competitors ride a track made of “cultivated snow“, i.e. snow stored and compacted the previous winter and covered with a reflective sheet.

Because covered piles don’t need electricity to cool, it’s a relatively environmentally friendly option.

“This year has been exceptional, but we know that due to climate change, these types of years will become more frequent.

“So we need to find ways to address the economic impact.”

Some, like Thomas Schmid of Sattel, have opened businesses that embrace the coming change.

Schmid, a professional asset manager, sold his father’s traditional Alpine herd and bought goats, shocking some of his neighbors.

But goats, he says, with their small hooves and lighter weight, do less damage to more exposed alpine vegetation with no winter snow cover.

And goats withstand temperature changes better than cows.

He and his sisters have opened a restaurant and shop, Blüemlisberg, and are experimenting with the production of goat milk chocolates and ice cream.

They invite the tourists’ children to play with the goats and the hikers to conclude their mountain walks in their restaurant with a fgoat cheese wave.

“I’m from here, it hurts me too to think that we can’t ski here anymore,” says Schmid.

“But people are starting to accept it. The climate is changing. So we have to do it too.”

c.2023 The New York Times Society