Heat and snow shortages undermine Alpine summer skiing

Heatwaves and a lack of snow have severely affected glacier ski areas in the Alps, with deep crevasses making summer skiing impossible by mid-August at the latest, BR reports. Ski clubs and associations are now seeking alternatives.

The glacier ski areas in Zermatt and Saas-Fee were temporarily closed. Their high-altitude pistes normally offer reliable conditions throughout the summer for training camps and recreational skiing. Operations at the Stilfser Joch, which is internationally known for summer skiing, also halted for weeks.

“We had five heatwaves this summer,” said Karl Thöni, an employee at the Stilfser Joch. “The glacier has suffered greatly and has shrunk by several metres.” The freezing level was often well above 4,000 metres.

Colder nights in recent days have allowed Thöni and his colleagues to reopen two lifts. Several crevasses had formed on the pistes during the warm weather, he said, but they could now be filled properly.

Environmental impact debated

Georg Kaser, a renowned glacier and climate researcher, said preparing glacier pistes and filling crevasses with artificial snow was ecologically acceptable. Skiing, operating the lifts and maintaining the facilities did not harm the ice, he said. Operators of glacier ski areas could even make a marginal contribution to preserving the ice mass because it was the basis of their income.

Operators were also doing more for the environment, Kaser said. Soot and oil residues were no longer a problem in glacier ski areas because of sulphur-free biodiesel. Operators also use solar energy and microbiological sewage treatment plants.

But Kaser and Andrea Fischer, a glaciologist from Innsbruck, agreed that climate change was placing severe pressure on the Alps as a whole. Fischer said the environmental concerns surrounding ski tourism were the same as those affecting tourism generally, including energy use, traffic and infrastructure.

Car journeys, the construction of roads and the creation of parking spaces alter the landscape and worsen the carbon dioxide balance. “What is doing massive damage to the glaciers is this human-made climate change, which is currently costing us 5 to 10 percent of the glacier area every year,” Fischer said. People therefore urgently needed to reduce their ecological carbon footprint.

Skiing alternatives for young athletes

By mid-August, no pistes in the Alps remained open. This created problems for European professional skiers and national teams, which moved their training camps to South America this year. Some are training in Chile on four metres of fresh snow.

Bavaria’s young skiers cannot and do not want to afford such a move. The Bavarian Ski Association is therefore using alternatives, said performance sport coordinator Fabian Emmert. At this stage, the athletes did not necessarily need to train on snow and could focus on physical development, including strength training, core stability, endurance training such as running and cycling, and coordination exercises.

The young Bavarian skiers also use indoor ski facilities in Wittenburg and the Netherlands. Emmert said they had still been able to train at the Stilfser Joch and in Saas-Fee in August last year, but that this was not possible this year. Conditions could look different again next year, he said.

In the long term, the timing of top-level competitions will also have to adapt to climate change, Emmert said. Races will need to be scheduled during periods when reliable snow conditions prevail in the mountains. Training is already becoming difficult for the world’s top slalom skiers, as the World Cup season begins in mid-November in Levi, Finland. Austria’s slalom professionals have therefore also travelled to Chile at short notice.