SATTEL, Switzerland - It was the last thing Simon Bissig, a ski resort manager, wanted to see when 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 icy windows, the panes were lashed with
rain
.
A bus stop in Sattel, Switzerland, where rain melted snow that had fallen, on Jan. 11, 2023. (Andrea Mantovani/The New York Times)
In the place where the guests would have dined, an unusual crisis session was taking place.
Marketing consultants were reviewing plans for what had become an existential issue:
What could be done with a ski resort without enough snow?
"I think we have to see that something is dying," said Michelle Furrer, the manager of the pension, which is on the same slope as the ski resort, Sattel-Hochstuckli, which Bissig runs.
Tufts of grass poke through patchy snow on the slopes of a ski resort in Sattel, Switzerland.
(Andrea Mantovani/The New York Times)
"We have to accept it, and then we can try to build: find something else."
The resort employees and many residents of the town of Sattel, just under 50 kilometers from Zurich, find it hard to recognize that the days of skiing there may be numbered.
As the planet warms, Europe has faced a year of climate crises.
In summer, many regions suffered severe drought and record heat.
Thomas Schmid, right, who replaced his father's cattle herd with goats because he said they caused less damage to more exposed alpine vegetation without winter snow cover, in Sattel.
(Andrea Mantovani/The New York Times)
Some areas have seen the highest winter temperatures this year, so warm that many ski resorts have not even been able to make snow.
For Switzerland, whose glaciers and snow cover are a crucial reservoir for Europe
's water supply
, the effect has been especially alarming.
The country is warming more than twice the global average and its glaciers have
lost 6%
of their volume in the last year alone, 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 about $5.5 billion a year.
But in a country where almost everyone skis, the loss of snow is more than just an economic or environmental hazard.
It is a threat to
national identity.
Julia and Silvan Betschart at Herrenboden, their rustic cabin in Sattel, Switzerland.
(Andrea Mantovani/The New York Times)
"Skiing here was kind of like the village sport," says Bissig.
"And you feel like, little by little, that's diminishing. It's very sad."
For years, people in places like Sattel, where the highest peaks are about 1,500 meters above sea level, thought they would be spared the worst snow loss.
Now, climatologists say that places below 5,000 feet will likely face a
snowless future
if the current rate of warming continues.
According to a recent study, even the highest areas could survive as tourist destinations only with the help of artificial snow production, which consumes
a lot of energy and water.
When recent temperatures made even fake snow a challenge, social media was awash with videos of throngs of tourists skiing down narrow strips of fake snow on verdant Alpine slopes.
Local tabloids criticized desperate measures by Swiss resorts such as bringing in snow by helicopter and offering alternative leisure activities such as
goat trekking
.
Last week, a new wave of precipitation heralded weeks of snowier ski resorts in the upper Alps.
But the problems are not over.
Sattel-Hochstuckli, which used to have an average of 12 to 16 inches of snow by now, only has 2 inches, and much of that is being washed away by rain.
At Sattel-Hochstuckli, Bissig opened the summer slides for the Christmas tourist season.
Elsewhere in Sattel, residents are developing
year-round tourism strategies.
For decades, Herrenboden, a rustic wooden lodge nestled between the slopes, had been a winter-only ski chalet.
But Silvan and Julia Betschart, who run it, have turned this three-generation family-owned hotel and restaurant -- decked out in sheepskins and deer antlers -- into a year-round destination, catering to hikers in the warmer months.
Silvan Betschart refuses to be scared off by the warm winter and remains skeptical that climate change is the main cause.
"We have had periods of bad winters," he 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 drop in snow.
"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 has carried out satellite research showing that almost 10% of the snow cover was no longer present in the summer months in alpine regions located at 1,500 meters above sea level.
Sonia Seneviratne, from the Zurich Institute of Atmospheric and Climate Sciences, said last summer was particularly worrying as some glaciers lost up to 6 meters of ice.
If world leaders do not act to limit warming to a threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius, the deterioration will accelerate.
"At best, winters like this will happen again from time to time.
"The worst case scenario is that, in the future, this looks like a really good winter."
Alternatives
Managers of Swiss ski resorts that use artificial snow chafe at criticism of their sometimes energy-intensive efforts to cope with the lack of snow.
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 re-cover a rain-swept ski slope.
Matthias In-Albon, Gstaad's CEO, said the route was critical to keeping many mountain tracks connected, and many places in the alpine areas use helicopters year-round to deliver food and supplies.
A snow lift was "fab," 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 travel was
at the mercy of the weather.
"People were used to finding stones on the track from time to time, or not all tracks being open at Christmas," he said.
"Nowadays, guests expect all the rinks to be open at Christmas. If you don't, customers will
book elsewhere
."
In the Alps, rural mountain communities have become dependent on that business, he said, working in ski lifts and hotels to supplement farming or other traditional income the rest of the year.
"Here we have a micro-economy that works, thanks to winter tourism," In-Albon said.
The economic impact is already being felt at Sattel-Hochstuckli, where Bissig said the resort could lose half its profits this year if not enough snow falls.
Furrer, the manager of the pension, has been allowing guests to cancel their reservations.
Most of the hotel rooms are empty, and she dreads the 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 breaks my heart".
You've been applying for government benefits for employees when a business is in trouble.
Sporting events have also suffered.
In the German Alps, the Alpine Ski World Cup canceled some events because unseasonable winter rains had ruined the prepared slopes.
In the Bavarian town of Ruhpolding, tourism director Gregor Matjan helped the town salvage its long tradition of Biathlon World Cup, a race that mixes cross-country skiing with rifle shooting.
This year, biathlon attendees slid through the mud to watch competitors navigate a track made of
"cultivated snow
," meaning snow stored and compacted the previous winter and covered with a reflective tarp.
Since 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 have to find ways to deal with the economic impact."
Some, like Thomas Schmid at Sattel, have opened businesses that embrace the coming change.
Schmid, a professional wealth 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 without winter snow cover.
And goats resist temperature variations better than cows.
He and his sisters have opened a restaurant and shop, Blüemlisberg, and are experimenting with making chocolates and goat milk ice cream.
They invite the children of the tourists to play with the goats and the hikers to finish the mountain walks in their restaurant with a
fondue of goat cheese.
"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 too."
c.2023 The New York Times Company
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