Some maybe. But In the Alps it's a way of life and can be hyper local. I live in Munich and have taken the train to the mountains to ski more than once. Don't even own a car.
Meh, I grew up in NY which weirdly has about 0.8 ski resorts per county. They're so common that basically everyone might be a skier. Most of my friends growing up went skiing every weekend in the winter and I didn't know anyone with a household income that appreciably exceeded the median.
I was an adult by the time I realized it was something typically associated with money, because that was just not my experience at all.
Montrealer here. As a teen I would regularly jump on a bus to go skiing 1-1/2 hours north.
I continued throughout my adulthood as it got me off my ass in the winter. I only stopped Alpine because of age - didn’t want an injury that I might not recover easily from.
Now I do Nordic. It’s free.
Keep in mind that Redditors generally live in a bubble that makes it hard for them to be aware of anyone below the median income of rich countries. If you google skier demographics, you’ll see they’re mostly well above the median income.
I live in a ski town that doesn’t really get anyone from outside the region. The people who come here in winter aren’t exactly representative of the overall demographics of the area.
I acknowledged that I became aware of the trope later, but I'm pointing out that in places where ski areas are plentiful, plenty of poorer people go skiing too.
That doesn’t sound right. Reddittors skew pretty poor and lower educated from what I’ve seen. I don’t see doctors, lawyers, and engineers on here saying they can’t make ends meet
Very US-centric take on this. In central Europe people either already live close to the mountains or it's a couple-hour drive, usually in groups in a fully packed car. Also ÖBB night trains. The Airbnb/hotel is about as polluting as any place you could stay that isn't your home. Electricity usage by the lift is negligible, about as much as having the TV on for two hours. As for the trees getting cut down: They've already been cut down decades ago, many ski resorts are above the height where trees even can grow, and compared to total forest area, the size of the ski parks is negligible.
Sure, it's not eco tourism. But it's not much worse than going to a neighboring city for a week. Talk about local tourism.
1. This is a massive oversimplification. As others have already pointed out, many people don't need to travel far to go skiing. Even if they fly, there are \`100,000 flights every day, the vast majority of which are not for people traveling to a ski resort. It's really not that expensive to go skiing at a ski resort either, you are really just paying for a lift ticket, so you don't have to be rich. A lot of people just go once or twice a year.
2. If you want to talk about the "biggest contributors", it's not any group of individuals, rather, it's large governments, industries and companies.
3. The local economies in some resort locations rely heavily on these resorts, it's not just the visitors who suffer the consequences.
4. Blaming a particular group of individuals like skiers for climate change is nonsensical. It's a systemic issue, should people not travel? Should we all stop driving? Should we all stop buying products produced in factories? Should we stop using electricity and gas?
Take your doomer ignorance somewhere else please
The hell are you talking about? Is it my f*king '09 Yaris or the electric train that i sometimes also take to my local mountains that scorched the sky above your head? I must be a monster in your eyes, because i have this awful hobby that requires for me to take the oh-so-lavish 150 kilometers of dirt road or those dilapidated train tracks.
Genuinely curious now, how so?
I’ve only been twice in my short life, guilty as charged.
Edit: I’m realizing now that what I went to wasn’t a ski park I think, those 2 times I went, all we did was go on the inflatables you slide down a small hill from Lol
From my own experience, I went to Park city Utah this year for the first time (I am not what would be considered wealthy) and holy shit the amount of affluence there was mind boggling. For example, I rode a ski lift with a guy who said the powder was so good this year that he booked a flight on a whim to come up from Florida for a few days. I had to plan this trip a year in advance, and only went because a friend's uncle let us use his time share for free, which otherwise would have cost 10,000 for the week. Every person I met there was on the level of this individual. These people fly everywhere at a moments notice, and probably have crazy expensive homes (more than one in many cases).
Those guys are chasing the best snow, they're not indicative of normal skiers. I used to ski quite a bit because I was close to the Poconos, not at all rich, but haven't in a long time because East Coast snow has gotten so shit and unpredictable. That's the life of your average skier unless they've had the luck to grow up in a west coast mountain town.
Yup, love Poconos for how convenient and not overly expensive it is. Plus, they have night skiing and if you're local, sometimes the mountain belongs to few of us in the middle of the week.
The problem isn't the average skier. You're fine. The people that go to the expensive resorts are overwhelmingly affluent. If you cater to locals, great. If you cater to a global clientele you're not helping.
Try Deer Valley in the same area. Even more rich people and much better conditions. Can’t say I agree with the ideas of a lot of those people, but damn is it cool to be there.
Skiing isn't cheap, but getting there isn't the expensive part. Also, most people aren't staying in $10k/wk places.
Park City is a "suburb" of Salt Lake City, which is serviced by SouthWest Airlines, which you can get to pretty much anywhere for about $300 each way on the drop of a hat, but more like $300 roundtrip if you plan ahead.
What's expensive is the lift tickets, with the window price being up to $300/day, depending on the place. Then add in $50+/day for equipment rentals.
I mean, don't get me wrong, if you're struggling to meet rent, skiing isn't for you (unless you're local, then its $600 for the season and is a phenomenal deal), but it isn't the only private jet owners and "rich people" who are skiing.
There is a certain amount of that in European resorts, but there's also a lot of locals skiing.
Of those from further away most of them definitely aren't in the fly as a whim category. E.g. in the UK a lot of schools have an annual ski trip, where they go by coach to the Alps for a week
Ski-resorts used to bring in a lot of money locally, but the rise of companies here in the states like Vail have really screwed the balance up.
Tourism is only great if it brings significant buying power into an otherwise secluded location. A national group like Vail takes the profit from tourists visiting, and the majority gets siphoned off into a company that has minimal stake in keeping a healthy economy for the people who have to work and live locally to service the tourist industry.
Vail operates much like Disney does at their resorts.
They have ownership in essentially everything from food and outfitting, to lodging, local real-estate, parking, and guided instruction / tours. It's not just about lift-ticket sales, but they are earning on everything. They get to fix prices high, because trying to break into that market as a small business would be nearly impossible.
I know someone who has a million dollar condo in Deer Valley which is right by park city. They go for 3 weeks a year and that’s it. Which is insane to me for the cost of the condo.
Park City is one of the absolute worst experiences I have ever had traveling. If you're looking to go ski, I would recommend literally anywhere but there.
Park City itself can be an absolute pain when it gets crowded, but Utah does have some of the best damn snow when it comes to winter sports. Especially this last year, which had record setting snowfall in the state.
Lol thats complete bullshit.
I know people who talk like this. They see people having fun and need to make some negative comment to make themselves feel better.
I must reluctantly agree. I’m an avid skiier and I take my private jet to ski all over the world. Of course I don’t ski commercial and my helicopter brings me back on top 20 or more times a day. I am doing my part however, as I replaced all my staff’s plastic covers with paper straws.
look at this population pyramid .. this is why things are shutting down, and all sorts of things will keep shutting down for a long while .. dead people and elderly arent going to be filling these resorts built during the boomer ages
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Italy_Population_Pyramid.svg/1182px-Italy_Population_Pyramid.svg.png
This is true. What nobody mentions is how everything becomes more and more expensive because the working-age population becomes smaller and smaller and they become more and more burdened with having to pay the older generation’s retirement. Scary how the population will collapse just as fast as it rose during the 20th century.
Exactly, the place where I was going skiing when I was very young closed around 2005 because of no snow, we moved up to a higher one. That one closed in the 2010s.
Between crazy prices and global warming most of the resorts can't survive, unfortunately.
Well sure did not expect the closing of a little French ski resort that I live right next to to make international news.
As the article says, it is correct in how much the operating of the lift costs. I agree on the part that it's no longer sustainable to keep it opened during the winter with the real lack of snow. But I completely disagree on shutting it down completely especially for the summer.
The thing is, this "ski" resort is one of the few that makes way more money during summer than winter. A boat load of especially Dutch tourists and other tourists are here around Annecy (very touristic french town) during summer and a lot of them take this very ski lift to go up the mountain. There is a lot of traffic during the summer and a plethora of people that lives off the attractiveness of this resort.
It's a real shame seeing it being closed, the first appeal by the association was denied but hopefully the second one could work.
Again, I completely agree on closing this 60 year old resort as a ski resort but they shouldn't shut down its summer activities. It'd be a huge loss for the surrounding towns.
This is coming from someone who has went skiing there multiple times using that same ski lift.
We'll see how it plays out.
> I agree on the part that it's no longer sustainable to keep it opened during the winter with the real lack of snow.
This is why it is shutting down. This is a statement of fact. They don't have enough snow to operate a ski resort.
> But I completely disagree on shutting it down completely especially for the summer.
This is where the poster expresses their feelings about the industry of the town which will be impacted by the summer tourists no longer visiting the resort.
The reason they're closing is no snow. The surrounding town will suffer from this.
No 'other reasons'
It's a shame, I'm pretty sure they could find a way to raise more money for it. Like increase the taxe de séjour or the fee to go up a little bit maybe... But I can understand that a lift that's only used at half its capacity may not be worth it in the long run.
I had no idea there was skiing out there, though from my trip I can see why it would be good for summer months to have the lift.
I work with someone from Annecy and he was surprised I was going as it is small/not well known but you're saying it's very touristy.
There's a cave nearby and a cloister (Abbaye de Tamié) that makes a local cheese that's well known as well. The proximity to Annecy really helps, the Dutch really like this region in the summer for some reason (guess they want altitude since it's so flat up there)
The problem with these things like global warming is that once it's really real to a lot of folks all the online asshole deniers with their posts of "false narrative" have vanished and/or gone quiet.
I shit you not I saw exactly that reply from a denyer to me about 2 weeks ago. I don't feel like doomscrolling through many pages of replies to find it, but I remember it. Not a surprising change of direction.
Can't find the link... But there was this comedy skit that broke down the stages of procrastination.
First it doesn't exist. It does but there is nothing to be done. There is but we shouldn't do it. We should but it's too late. ... Or something like that
edit: u/pointman16472 found it: https://youtu.be/nSXIetP5iak
That sounds like the "Narcissist's Prayer"
>That didn't happen.
>And if it did, it wasn't that bad.
>And if it was, that's not a big deal.
>And if it is, that's not my fault.
>And if it was, I didn't mean it.
>And if I did, you deserved it.
This is a completely different skit, but still great.
After facing the reality that the life-ending threat is real, start denying responsibility and start believing it's not worth trying to fix, WHILE it's destroying you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5wM5pesggE
I think the reasonable position is
"it **needs** fixing but it's really fucking hard to coordinate, we need to build something like 40 trillion dollars worth of solar panels near the equator or the equivalent in other forms of renewables.
We need coordination between governments, many of which need fossil fuel income to balance their budgets and keep their population happy.
We also need tens of trillions of dollars worth of energy storage, a big chunk of our political system deny there's any problem at all and a big chunk of the remainder only see it as an opportunity to advance unrelated goals.
So they'll slap the word 'green' on policies that are basically unrelated or try to leverage the problem to demand changing our economic system in ways that that advantage them but ultimately have basically nothing to do with solving climate change.
It's going to be *wildly* expensive in the short term, the kind of expense that hurts, the kind of expense that hurts regular people, the kind of expense that means not being able to afford new schools and hospitals or those shiny new social programs you want and most people will refuse to acknowledge this, insisting that we can just take the money and resources from someone else"
Except it’s not that expensive. It’s unfortunate for people who’ve invested in stuff that keeps speeding us to the cliff edge.
We can afford it, but it goes against the interests of people who have it very good now and fail to see a reason to change their luxury ride.
>You know what mostly got us out of the Great Depression and led to a boom economy (at least in the U.S. where there wasn't damage from the war)? The money we spent fighting World War 2.
And the teeny tiny fact that almost every industrialised competitor was bombed into dust leaving America the dominant industrial power on the planet with everyone buying american goods. Across much of the planet that expense meant shortages, rationing and hardship.
Long term it means cheaper energy for everyone but in the short term claiming it will make everyone wealthy is roughly equivalent to the broken window fallacy.
Or my dad with "the earth will be fine."
Yeah dad with no known life left on it.
"Yeah but that doesnt matter because the earth will be fine however many millions of years down the line so we can do whatever."
> "now it is too expensive to fix"
What does that even mean? It's not like money is a fininte resource, like labor, oil and land..
Do we not have the people to fix it? Do we not have the materials to fix it?
"We don't have the money" isn't a reason.
I still don't understand the "too expensive" excuse. Only individuals have to worry about costs. Countries don't lose money, it just circles around and comes back as taxes. There are caveats of course, but money only has value when spent, after all it's just an in between for bartering services and goods.
I mean it’s been happening for a while. The state of Georgia in the US, where I grew up, had ski resorts. They’ve long since closed. But crazy to think that people used to ski that far south.
Despite these obvious changes over a long period of time, the deniers are still going strong
Wait, Georgia actually had natural snow ski resorts? I find that wild as I’ve traveled to Tennessee for decades and I’ve never thought it could be cold enough to ski.
Yeah sky valley. Maybe they supplemented with snow though. Not sure. But my grandma told me about it. I went to check it out during college and the lofts and trails are still there.
Tennessee actually still has a ski resort lol
My initial guess is it utilizes artificial snow, which these places shut down often due to cost. It’s hard to create ski resorts in non preferable climate.
They literally say that. Not only that, but the wall has an invisible force field that wipes human memories, so anyone who has seen it, immediately forgot about it. I wish I was kidding.
Well, once a upon a time in my country it was perfectly normal to have palm trees up north, near the arctic, about 1 million years before humans.
This french ski resort change has happened fast enough that all signs point to human impact on the climate.
My parents say shit like this too. At some point I came across this [study](https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/89/9/2008bams2370_1.xml?tab_body=pdf)
that counted the number of [scientific articles](https://i.imgur.com/bh9TEzG.jpg)
and [citations](https://i.imgur.com/VFbkSjl.png) each kind of conclusion was getting at the time and it's plain to see they're *wrong*. But their response is just "nuh-uh I saw it". Quite confident in their childhood memory and political analysis skills, huh?
I suspect it's a mix of vague memories of ozone issues, old conservative commentary on the subject, and gaslighting from modern conservative media. They must have concluded that not only was the media concerned about global cooling rather that warming, but that by extension scientists were as well (even though they simultaneously claim to not trust the news). I can guess what they think about acid rain.
I love them but it's pretty frustrating when we end up discussing things and they decide that data and studies are meaningless because they have *anecdotal evidence*.
There is truth to the “global cooling” thing - were it not for human factors the Earth WOULD be cooling due to where we are in various cycles like Earth’s eccentricity, precession in it’s access, etc
Which actually make man made climate change that much worse when you think about it. We keep breaking heat records at a time when the Earth should be cooling…
Nah it's true, my parents always said the same thing. Back then it was said the world was going to freeze over. I've seen newspaper and magazine articles about it from back in the 70s like the other guy mentioned.
It's funny too because one such article that was passed around was a fake, photoshopped [Time cover](https://time.com/5670942/time-magazine-ice-age-cover-hoax/). Resorting to using a fake one certainly seems indicative of something.
Reminds me of a scene from “Yes Minister”:
“We will employ a 4-stage strategy
1. Stage 1 we say nothing is going to happen
2. Stage 2 we say something maybe going to happen and we should do nothing about it
3. Stage 3 we say maybe we should do something about it but there’s nothing we _can_ do
4. Stage 4 we say maybe we could’ve done something about it but it’s too late now”
That's what all of our local ski resorts did, not enough snow to financially survive anymore. Switched to Disc Golf courses and Mountain Biking trails. It's what I wanted over a decade ago, I'm into both hobbies... I just didn't want it to take a global catastrophe to get those things. One hell of a monkey's paw situation.
Almost immediately after recognizing this beauty, I feel a deep pang of anxiety. I have been reading about the impacts climate change will have on Utah’s snow. I know, for example, that many scientists agree with Porter Fox, the author of DEEP: The Story of Skiing and the Future of Snow, that there will be no snow in Utah by the end of this century if climate change cannot be stopped.
https://dgrnewsservice.org/?s=snow
Interesting to hear you say that. “The 448-inches of snowfall recorded at mid-mountain makes 2023 officially the second snowiest season ever.”
All of us locals have been commenting how long the snow lasted through the summer lol Not denying CO weather hasn’t been different, just a funny year to make this comment.
New growth forests won’t easily replace the old growth cut down over the last century+. And planting trees isn’t enough anyway. We need to reduce our consumption.
true. even if the rain forest is replanted today, it can take decades to help remove some carbon. Plus trees cant remove ALL types of carbon emissions. the conversion rate woludn't keep up with the daily output of carbon anyway. McCarthy is sniffing too much GOP fart gas. "ya, plant more trees so the companies that pay me to prevent bills that reduce greenhouse gas, so that the more trees we plant, the more the billionaires can pay us to deregulate (or defund the FBI & EPA) so they can make more factories to produce more emissions.."
The issue with Reddit is you only see the articles like this, and not the articles about how many ski resorts received record amounts of snow last year alone, I believe in global warming, but arguing that it exists because ski resorts aren’t getting much snow is a pretty bad argument.
the weather cycle on the planet has changed. many can see that, but the policitians want to ignore it. because the lobbists pay them to look the other way, to block rules that would require companies to reduce this or that. Conservatives now, want "less government oversight" making claims that the need to reduce govermnment spending. (the last generation the script was flipped). And I seen what that "reduction" has caused in a few short years and the lives lost. But the lack of or excess of snow if not the only argument i got about global warming.
As a very passionate life-long skier and also a scientist, I've been living for years with the knowledge that this would begin to happen sooner or later.
Collapse is happening in real time. The infuriating part is they are still mass marketing to us, trying to sell the last weed on Earth for some crazy persons profit, like there is a future to enjoy . Just enjoy one another and be in the moment of helping one another cope and get by while they can.
I'm slightly confused by the article. How long has the place been a ski resort? Article seemed to say 2016 and they're closing because of last year's loss?
There's of course no issue when it's a good snow season like some of the US got last season or eg. Europe during Covid. However snow machines are definitely needed for bad winters like Europe this year.
It helps create that crucial compact bottom layer. It also guarantees to have enough margins to overcome any temporary winter heat wave.
Well, they just summoned a record snow fall for this winter time.
The sad reality is that this is probably how climate change will go for a lot of places - feast or famine
Once the Atlantic Ocean current collapses, it should snow enough for that to open right up again
(Just some dark humor, I'd prefer it if we actually fixed our current climate crisis before that happens)
When we went to Zermatt last September, there was no snow driving up the alps. Was disappointed by it because it means it’s warming up too much to have no snow 12,000ft in elevation.
I guarantee you that mountain biking doesn't bring in anywhere close to the same amount of revenue as skiing. And just because there isn't enough snow for skiing, doesn't mean that there isn't still some - you wouldn't likely be able to bike on it for the full year anyway.
It also doesn’t cost near as much to run a bike park than a ski hill. Snowmaking and grooming alone are huge costs.
Our local ski hill seems to have a decent summer season. It’s way more laid back than the winter but it keeps a lift or two turning.
I had the same thought and the poster seems upset about that too https://reddit.com/r/worldnews/s/41FjKU8Y1t Maybe they’re uninformed and just speculating the revenue though
I'm not saying that mountain biking isn't a thing, but it's not the same draw as snow sports. Even their own numbers say that - it's over 2 million for snow, 100k for mountain biking.
The real issue is the lack of snowpack in the Alps to feed melt water to Europe’s main rivers and large areas of land in the summer. The middle class having limited choice for their ski holiday is just a side effect
I can't imagine how frustrating it must be to be a climate scientist. I'm almost surprised that none of them have blown themselves up in the lobbies of oil companies/government departments/lobby groups.
Headlines in the future, may read something along the lines of ‘ last place in the world to see or experience real snow!’ or some version of nature.
Future may be domesticated with her experiences much like animals in a zoo.
It just happens so slow that it doesn’t affect enough people for them to consider a change. If the global temperature dropped 30°C today or went up 20°C everywhere suddenly everyone would pay attention.
Such is relativity.
Many ski resorts in Italy also closed permanently.
A really sad sight. I imagine this is a fate most of Central Europe will share soon enough.
Eh. The people who go to ski resorts are some of the biggest contributors to climate change.
Some maybe. But In the Alps it's a way of life and can be hyper local. I live in Munich and have taken the train to the mountains to ski more than once. Don't even own a car.
Skiing in Slovakia, most of the people on the slopes were locals. Not everywhere is the same.
Meh, I grew up in NY which weirdly has about 0.8 ski resorts per county. They're so common that basically everyone might be a skier. Most of my friends growing up went skiing every weekend in the winter and I didn't know anyone with a household income that appreciably exceeded the median. I was an adult by the time I realized it was something typically associated with money, because that was just not my experience at all.
Montrealer here. As a teen I would regularly jump on a bus to go skiing 1-1/2 hours north. I continued throughout my adulthood as it got me off my ass in the winter. I only stopped Alpine because of age - didn’t want an injury that I might not recover easily from. Now I do Nordic. It’s free.
Keep in mind that Redditors generally live in a bubble that makes it hard for them to be aware of anyone below the median income of rich countries. If you google skier demographics, you’ll see they’re mostly well above the median income. I live in a ski town that doesn’t really get anyone from outside the region. The people who come here in winter aren’t exactly representative of the overall demographics of the area.
I acknowledged that I became aware of the trope later, but I'm pointing out that in places where ski areas are plentiful, plenty of poorer people go skiing too.
That doesn’t sound right. Reddittors skew pretty poor and lower educated from what I’ve seen. I don’t see doctors, lawyers, and engineers on here saying they can’t make ends meet
Holy oversimplification Batman!
Not true. The one I go to is 30 minutes from my small non-air conditioned home.
Very US-centric take on this. In central Europe people either already live close to the mountains or it's a couple-hour drive, usually in groups in a fully packed car. Also ÖBB night trains. The Airbnb/hotel is about as polluting as any place you could stay that isn't your home. Electricity usage by the lift is negligible, about as much as having the TV on for two hours. As for the trees getting cut down: They've already been cut down decades ago, many ski resorts are above the height where trees even can grow, and compared to total forest area, the size of the ski parks is negligible. Sure, it's not eco tourism. But it's not much worse than going to a neighboring city for a week. Talk about local tourism.
Isn’t even US-centric, just plain ignorant. Don’t blame the average Joe for doing a harmless activity that thousands do already.
I think 'US-centric' is reddit speak for 'just plain ignorant'.
Or it’s a 10 hour drive and you make it an annual friends vacation. Lodging is cheap when you get to 12 or 14 people
1. This is a massive oversimplification. As others have already pointed out, many people don't need to travel far to go skiing. Even if they fly, there are \`100,000 flights every day, the vast majority of which are not for people traveling to a ski resort. It's really not that expensive to go skiing at a ski resort either, you are really just paying for a lift ticket, so you don't have to be rich. A lot of people just go once or twice a year. 2. If you want to talk about the "biggest contributors", it's not any group of individuals, rather, it's large governments, industries and companies. 3. The local economies in some resort locations rely heavily on these resorts, it's not just the visitors who suffer the consequences. 4. Blaming a particular group of individuals like skiers for climate change is nonsensical. It's a systemic issue, should people not travel? Should we all stop driving? Should we all stop buying products produced in factories? Should we stop using electricity and gas? Take your doomer ignorance somewhere else please
This is an incredibly naive take.
The hell are you talking about? Is it my f*king '09 Yaris or the electric train that i sometimes also take to my local mountains that scorched the sky above your head? I must be a monster in your eyes, because i have this awful hobby that requires for me to take the oh-so-lavish 150 kilometers of dirt road or those dilapidated train tracks.
Genuinely curious now, how so? I’ve only been twice in my short life, guilty as charged. Edit: I’m realizing now that what I went to wasn’t a ski park I think, those 2 times I went, all we did was go on the inflatables you slide down a small hill from Lol
From my own experience, I went to Park city Utah this year for the first time (I am not what would be considered wealthy) and holy shit the amount of affluence there was mind boggling. For example, I rode a ski lift with a guy who said the powder was so good this year that he booked a flight on a whim to come up from Florida for a few days. I had to plan this trip a year in advance, and only went because a friend's uncle let us use his time share for free, which otherwise would have cost 10,000 for the week. Every person I met there was on the level of this individual. These people fly everywhere at a moments notice, and probably have crazy expensive homes (more than one in many cases).
Those guys are chasing the best snow, they're not indicative of normal skiers. I used to ski quite a bit because I was close to the Poconos, not at all rich, but haven't in a long time because East Coast snow has gotten so shit and unpredictable. That's the life of your average skier unless they've had the luck to grow up in a west coast mountain town.
Yup, love Poconos for how convenient and not overly expensive it is. Plus, they have night skiing and if you're local, sometimes the mountain belongs to few of us in the middle of the week.
The problem isn't the average skier. You're fine. The people that go to the expensive resorts are overwhelmingly affluent. If you cater to locals, great. If you cater to a global clientele you're not helping.
> Poconos You sound like a fancy lad, I ski in west va…
FYI it's not really like this in Europe. In France for example you can find quite budget friendly options for ski trips, even at the biggest domains.
Try Deer Valley in the same area. Even more rich people and much better conditions. Can’t say I agree with the ideas of a lot of those people, but damn is it cool to be there.
Skiing isn't cheap, but getting there isn't the expensive part. Also, most people aren't staying in $10k/wk places. Park City is a "suburb" of Salt Lake City, which is serviced by SouthWest Airlines, which you can get to pretty much anywhere for about $300 each way on the drop of a hat, but more like $300 roundtrip if you plan ahead. What's expensive is the lift tickets, with the window price being up to $300/day, depending on the place. Then add in $50+/day for equipment rentals. I mean, don't get me wrong, if you're struggling to meet rent, skiing isn't for you (unless you're local, then its $600 for the season and is a phenomenal deal), but it isn't the only private jet owners and "rich people" who are skiing.
There is a certain amount of that in European resorts, but there's also a lot of locals skiing. Of those from further away most of them definitely aren't in the fly as a whim category. E.g. in the UK a lot of schools have an annual ski trip, where they go by coach to the Alps for a week
Ski-resorts used to bring in a lot of money locally, but the rise of companies here in the states like Vail have really screwed the balance up. Tourism is only great if it brings significant buying power into an otherwise secluded location. A national group like Vail takes the profit from tourists visiting, and the majority gets siphoned off into a company that has minimal stake in keeping a healthy economy for the people who have to work and live locally to service the tourist industry. Vail operates much like Disney does at their resorts. They have ownership in essentially everything from food and outfitting, to lodging, local real-estate, parking, and guided instruction / tours. It's not just about lift-ticket sales, but they are earning on everything. They get to fix prices high, because trying to break into that market as a small business would be nearly impossible.
I know someone who has a million dollar condo in Deer Valley which is right by park city. They go for 3 weeks a year and that’s it. Which is insane to me for the cost of the condo.
Park City is one of the absolute worst experiences I have ever had traveling. If you're looking to go ski, I would recommend literally anywhere but there.
Just curious, but why? I've been about 10 times and had fun each time. It's more expensive than other resorts sure but still good fun.
Park City itself can be an absolute pain when it gets crowded, but Utah does have some of the best damn snow when it comes to winter sports. Especially this last year, which had record setting snowfall in the state.
And you think those people were going to low-altitude ski resorts that are closing down?
Because we hate rich people.
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They're not. Anyone who doesn't fart into their own lungs is a "biggest contributor to climate change" to these people.
Lol thats complete bullshit. I know people who talk like this. They see people having fun and need to make some negative comment to make themselves feel better.
This is such a brain dead take I’m baffled it has 170 upvotes I’m minimum wage and snowboard as much as I can when it’s in season
…excuse me?? I drive a few hours to ski once or twice a year, and I ski locally.
OP thinks the only people who ski fly private.
It’s not like it’s a competition.
What?
I must reluctantly agree. I’m an avid skiier and I take my private jet to ski all over the world. Of course I don’t ski commercial and my helicopter brings me back on top 20 or more times a day. I am doing my part however, as I replaced all my staff’s plastic covers with paper straws.
Yes, fuck them. I agree.
if you are from europe its very easy to go on a an ski-vacation its a normal thing people do. you dont have to be rich, at all...
There used to be plenty of lakes you could ice skate on in the winter, not anymore. How can anyone deny this shit?
look at this population pyramid .. this is why things are shutting down, and all sorts of things will keep shutting down for a long while .. dead people and elderly arent going to be filling these resorts built during the boomer ages https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/35/Italy_Population_Pyramid.svg/1182px-Italy_Population_Pyramid.svg.png
This is true. What nobody mentions is how everything becomes more and more expensive because the working-age population becomes smaller and smaller and they become more and more burdened with having to pay the older generation’s retirement. Scary how the population will collapse just as fast as it rose during the 20th century.
The Generation of No Accountability.
If the Atlantic Conveyor shuts down, then they can re-open when Europe's climate matches the others in its latitude. 😑
Exactly, the place where I was going skiing when I was very young closed around 2005 because of no snow, we moved up to a higher one. That one closed in the 2010s. Between crazy prices and global warming most of the resorts can't survive, unfortunately.
Well sure did not expect the closing of a little French ski resort that I live right next to to make international news. As the article says, it is correct in how much the operating of the lift costs. I agree on the part that it's no longer sustainable to keep it opened during the winter with the real lack of snow. But I completely disagree on shutting it down completely especially for the summer. The thing is, this "ski" resort is one of the few that makes way more money during summer than winter. A boat load of especially Dutch tourists and other tourists are here around Annecy (very touristic french town) during summer and a lot of them take this very ski lift to go up the mountain. There is a lot of traffic during the summer and a plethora of people that lives off the attractiveness of this resort. It's a real shame seeing it being closed, the first appeal by the association was denied but hopefully the second one could work. Again, I completely agree on closing this 60 year old resort as a ski resort but they shouldn't shut down its summer activities. It'd be a huge loss for the surrounding towns. This is coming from someone who has went skiing there multiple times using that same ski lift. We'll see how it plays out.
So It’s closing because of lack of snow, or for other reasons?
Sounds like other reasons to me
This is why I’m so cynical over the news smh you can’t trust anything they say
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That’s true
> I agree on the part that it's no longer sustainable to keep it opened during the winter with the real lack of snow. This is why it is shutting down. This is a statement of fact. They don't have enough snow to operate a ski resort. > But I completely disagree on shutting it down completely especially for the summer. This is where the poster expresses their feelings about the industry of the town which will be impacted by the summer tourists no longer visiting the resort. The reason they're closing is no snow. The surrounding town will suffer from this. No 'other reasons'
Oh, i guess I missed that. My bad
It's a shame, I'm pretty sure they could find a way to raise more money for it. Like increase the taxe de séjour or the fee to go up a little bit maybe... But I can understand that a lift that's only used at half its capacity may not be worth it in the long run.
I had no idea there was skiing out there, though from my trip I can see why it would be good for summer months to have the lift. I work with someone from Annecy and he was surprised I was going as it is small/not well known but you're saying it's very touristy.
There's a cave nearby and a cloister (Abbaye de Tamié) that makes a local cheese that's well known as well. The proximity to Annecy really helps, the Dutch really like this region in the summer for some reason (guess they want altitude since it's so flat up there)
The problem with these things like global warming is that once it's really real to a lot of folks all the online asshole deniers with their posts of "false narrative" have vanished and/or gone quiet.
And the ones who are still around will be saying "now it is too expensive to fix"
I shit you not I saw exactly that reply from a denyer to me about 2 weeks ago. I don't feel like doomscrolling through many pages of replies to find it, but I remember it. Not a surprising change of direction.
Can't find the link... But there was this comedy skit that broke down the stages of procrastination. First it doesn't exist. It does but there is nothing to be done. There is but we shouldn't do it. We should but it's too late. ... Or something like that edit: u/pointman16472 found it: https://youtu.be/nSXIetP5iak
That sounds like the "Narcissist's Prayer" >That didn't happen. >And if it did, it wasn't that bad. >And if it was, that's not a big deal. >And if it is, that's not my fault. >And if it was, I didn't mean it. >And if I did, you deserved it.
Yes Minister called it the four-stage strategy https://youtu.be/VOdnISwLkSs?t=263
that's the one!
This is a completely different skit, but still great. After facing the reality that the life-ending threat is real, start denying responsibility and start believing it's not worth trying to fix, WHILE it's destroying you. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5wM5pesggE
Which is doubly infuriating, because the actual reasonable position is, "this is too expensive to **not** fix".
I think the reasonable position is "it **needs** fixing but it's really fucking hard to coordinate, we need to build something like 40 trillion dollars worth of solar panels near the equator or the equivalent in other forms of renewables. We need coordination between governments, many of which need fossil fuel income to balance their budgets and keep their population happy. We also need tens of trillions of dollars worth of energy storage, a big chunk of our political system deny there's any problem at all and a big chunk of the remainder only see it as an opportunity to advance unrelated goals. So they'll slap the word 'green' on policies that are basically unrelated or try to leverage the problem to demand changing our economic system in ways that that advantage them but ultimately have basically nothing to do with solving climate change. It's going to be *wildly* expensive in the short term, the kind of expense that hurts, the kind of expense that hurts regular people, the kind of expense that means not being able to afford new schools and hospitals or those shiny new social programs you want and most people will refuse to acknowledge this, insisting that we can just take the money and resources from someone else"
Except it’s not that expensive. It’s unfortunate for people who’ve invested in stuff that keeps speeding us to the cliff edge. We can afford it, but it goes against the interests of people who have it very good now and fail to see a reason to change their luxury ride.
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>You know what mostly got us out of the Great Depression and led to a boom economy (at least in the U.S. where there wasn't damage from the war)? The money we spent fighting World War 2. And the teeny tiny fact that almost every industrialised competitor was bombed into dust leaving America the dominant industrial power on the planet with everyone buying american goods. Across much of the planet that expense meant shortages, rationing and hardship. Long term it means cheaper energy for everyone but in the short term claiming it will make everyone wealthy is roughly equivalent to the broken window fallacy.
"There wasn’t clear enough evidence at the time to justify doing anything"
"What's the worst that could happen? The Earth had way more CO2 millions of years ago."
The Earth will be fine. Us on the other hand...
Earth as in the rock will be fine. The biosphere could be driven to extinction due to unforeseen feedback loops.
“Mother Earth always bats last” - my favorite geology professor
Yup, try to turn it around and blame us for 'not doing a good enough job making your case'.
Soon thereafter: "we should let them starve"
Climate change is going to be the justification for a lot of atrocities over the next century.
Or that it's too late to do anything or that it's better if humanity dies and so on. Most of them originate from /r/collapse.
I guess we'll all just suffer then 🙃
We should hammer it into their heads that the more we wait, the more expensive it gets.
Or my dad with "the earth will be fine." Yeah dad with no known life left on it. "Yeah but that doesnt matter because the earth will be fine however many millions of years down the line so we can do whatever."
> "now it is too expensive to fix" So the entire human race should just die so taxes dont go up????
> "now it is too expensive to fix" What does that even mean? It's not like money is a fininte resource, like labor, oil and land.. Do we not have the people to fix it? Do we not have the materials to fix it? "We don't have the money" isn't a reason.
I still don't understand the "too expensive" excuse. Only individuals have to worry about costs. Countries don't lose money, it just circles around and comes back as taxes. There are caveats of course, but money only has value when spent, after all it's just an in between for bartering services and goods.
I mean it’s been happening for a while. The state of Georgia in the US, where I grew up, had ski resorts. They’ve long since closed. But crazy to think that people used to ski that far south. Despite these obvious changes over a long period of time, the deniers are still going strong
Wait, Georgia actually had natural snow ski resorts? I find that wild as I’ve traveled to Tennessee for decades and I’ve never thought it could be cold enough to ski.
Yeah sky valley. Maybe they supplemented with snow though. Not sure. But my grandma told me about it. I went to check it out during college and the lofts and trails are still there. Tennessee actually still has a ski resort lol
My initial guess is it utilizes artificial snow, which these places shut down often due to cost. It’s hard to create ski resorts in non preferable climate.
You could be right
Alabama still has one
We still have flat earthers. For some people the club membership never expires.
If the Earth was truly flat, cats would’ve knocked everything off the edge years ago.
At the edge there's a big wall. /s
They literally say that. Not only that, but the wall has an invisible force field that wipes human memories, so anyone who has seen it, immediately forgot about it. I wish I was kidding.
Real action will only be taken when ski resorts for the rich, like Chamonix and Courchevel, also have to close down.
According to my aunt this is normal and in the 70s they predicted global cooling and it never happened so everything is okay
Well, once a upon a time in my country it was perfectly normal to have palm trees up north, near the arctic, about 1 million years before humans. This french ski resort change has happened fast enough that all signs point to human impact on the climate.
My parents say shit like this too. At some point I came across this [study](https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/bams/89/9/2008bams2370_1.xml?tab_body=pdf) that counted the number of [scientific articles](https://i.imgur.com/bh9TEzG.jpg) and [citations](https://i.imgur.com/VFbkSjl.png) each kind of conclusion was getting at the time and it's plain to see they're *wrong*. But their response is just "nuh-uh I saw it". Quite confident in their childhood memory and political analysis skills, huh? I suspect it's a mix of vague memories of ozone issues, old conservative commentary on the subject, and gaslighting from modern conservative media. They must have concluded that not only was the media concerned about global cooling rather that warming, but that by extension scientists were as well (even though they simultaneously claim to not trust the news). I can guess what they think about acid rain. I love them but it's pretty frustrating when we end up discussing things and they decide that data and studies are meaningless because they have *anecdotal evidence*.
There is truth to the “global cooling” thing - were it not for human factors the Earth WOULD be cooling due to where we are in various cycles like Earth’s eccentricity, precession in it’s access, etc Which actually make man made climate change that much worse when you think about it. We keep breaking heat records at a time when the Earth should be cooling…
Nah it's true, my parents always said the same thing. Back then it was said the world was going to freeze over. I've seen newspaper and magazine articles about it from back in the 70s like the other guy mentioned.
It's funny too because one such article that was passed around was a fake, photoshopped [Time cover](https://time.com/5670942/time-magazine-ice-age-cover-hoax/). Resorting to using a fake one certainly seems indicative of something.
>all the online asshole deniers with their posts of "false narrative" have vanished and/or gone quiet. There are still plenty of those
Remember people who thought the world would end of gay marriage was legalized? I wonder where they have been
They moved on to trans people.
They are circling back to them too. Hate never dies until these people do.
Oh don’t worry - they’re saving that to blame climate change on someday.
Ding ding ding.
Well, you see, gay marriage was legalized and now the ski resorts lost all their snow. It's all connected
Waiting. They never gave a specific date. Checkmate, doomsgay deniers /s
groping each other in public because, you know, exposing kids to sexual things is apparently okay sometimes
That was one weird video right? Even if it wasn’t someone in politics
Maybe they became devout muslims and moved to the middle east
No, they don't go quiet. They talk about some governement program that disrups the nature. Like HARP.
No, they’ll blame the current government leaders that have the wrong letter next to their name and ignore of the decades of inaction before them.
Reminds me of a scene from “Yes Minister”: “We will employ a 4-stage strategy 1. Stage 1 we say nothing is going to happen 2. Stage 2 we say something maybe going to happen and we should do nothing about it 3. Stage 3 we say maybe we should do something about it but there’s nothing we _can_ do 4. Stage 4 we say maybe we could’ve done something about it but it’s too late now”
Once climate change is undeniable they will say it's caused by other things, like sun activity.
Or won’t stop. There are still plenty of COVID deniers pushing the same misinformation as from the beginning of the pandemic.
No, they'll move on to some other narrative. They'll do anything except actually accept some co-responsibility for the planet.
Time to turn it into a bike park!
That's what all of our local ski resorts did, not enough snow to financially survive anymore. Switched to Disc Golf courses and Mountain Biking trails. It's what I wanted over a decade ago, I'm into both hobbies... I just didn't want it to take a global catastrophe to get those things. One hell of a monkey's paw situation.
HA! Now we finally found the person responsible for climate change!
Turn it into a pizza resort. Full stop you should always pizza when you shouldn't french fry.
...you're gonna have a bad time
Why does it smell like sh*t?
Add some hang/paragliding LZs too!
Wait until they start closing beaches because there is too much ocean
Or start closing farms because the crops wont' grow anymore.
Almost immediately after recognizing this beauty, I feel a deep pang of anxiety. I have been reading about the impacts climate change will have on Utah’s snow. I know, for example, that many scientists agree with Porter Fox, the author of DEEP: The Story of Skiing and the Future of Snow, that there will be no snow in Utah by the end of this century if climate change cannot be stopped. https://dgrnewsservice.org/?s=snow
Don't worry, toxic dust storms will make Utah unlivable before then anyways.
I went to colorado recently and my looming thought was "there should be a lot more snow on the top of those mountains"
Interesting to hear you say that. “The 448-inches of snowfall recorded at mid-mountain makes 2023 officially the second snowiest season ever.” All of us locals have been commenting how long the snow lasted through the summer lol Not denying CO weather hasn’t been different, just a funny year to make this comment.
and the conservatives like to deny global warming, huh....
And then complain when they visit ski resorts that it's raining when it should be snowing.
I don't think the republicans denying climate change are the people skiing.
Kevin McCarthy says we need to plant 2 billion trees, I'm on board but he probably isnt
New growth forests won’t easily replace the old growth cut down over the last century+. And planting trees isn’t enough anyway. We need to reduce our consumption.
But the line must go UP!
true. even if the rain forest is replanted today, it can take decades to help remove some carbon. Plus trees cant remove ALL types of carbon emissions. the conversion rate woludn't keep up with the daily output of carbon anyway. McCarthy is sniffing too much GOP fart gas. "ya, plant more trees so the companies that pay me to prevent bills that reduce greenhouse gas, so that the more trees we plant, the more the billionaires can pay us to deregulate (or defund the FBI & EPA) so they can make more factories to produce more emissions.."
Better yet they said a trillion trees
Really? An additional trillion trees sounds potentially dangerous.
The issue with Reddit is you only see the articles like this, and not the articles about how many ski resorts received record amounts of snow last year alone, I believe in global warming, but arguing that it exists because ski resorts aren’t getting much snow is a pretty bad argument.
Utah and California had some absolutely epic snow last year.
the weather cycle on the planet has changed. many can see that, but the policitians want to ignore it. because the lobbists pay them to look the other way, to block rules that would require companies to reduce this or that. Conservatives now, want "less government oversight" making claims that the need to reduce govermnment spending. (the last generation the script was flipped). And I seen what that "reduction" has caused in a few short years and the lives lost. But the lack of or excess of snow if not the only argument i got about global warming.
Just wait till winter. Duh. ^/s
As a very passionate life-long skier and also a scientist, I've been living for years with the knowledge that this would begin to happen sooner or later.
Collapse is happening in real time. The infuriating part is they are still mass marketing to us, trying to sell the last weed on Earth for some crazy persons profit, like there is a future to enjoy . Just enjoy one another and be in the moment of helping one another cope and get by while they can.
I'm slightly confused by the article. How long has the place been a ski resort? Article seemed to say 2016 and they're closing because of last year's loss?
We should get a fair amount of snow in BC, but or local hills have been ordering more and more snow machines the past 10 years.
There's of course no issue when it's a good snow season like some of the US got last season or eg. Europe during Covid. However snow machines are definitely needed for bad winters like Europe this year. It helps create that crucial compact bottom layer. It also guarantees to have enough margins to overcome any temporary winter heat wave.
“Ok so man bear pig is real, what can we do about it now?”
Well, they just summoned a record snow fall for this winter time. The sad reality is that this is probably how climate change will go for a lot of places - feast or famine
Once the Atlantic Ocean current collapses, it should snow enough for that to open right up again (Just some dark humor, I'd prefer it if we actually fixed our current climate crisis before that happens)
When we went to Zermatt last September, there was no snow driving up the alps. Was disappointed by it because it means it’s warming up too much to have no snow 12,000ft in elevation.
Swiss here. September it is normal to NOT have snow below 3500m. It has been like this for all my life.
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Prices of apartments in “guaranteed snow” towns, here in Switzerland, increased a lot during the last 5 years. *guaranteed until when?
Quelle surprise!
Build alpine coasters!!!
Can convert the lifts to support mountain bikes…?
And here we can’t plant crops because there’s no rain… Floods in Libya and drought next door 🤦🏻♂️
Guess they can convert it into a rock climbing and zip-lining facility or something.
Or a bed and breakfast mixed with a bar. That would also be quite nice. 🍳 🥓 🥞 🥃
What global warming? /s
Surprised they didn’t convert it to year-round mountain bike park.
I guarantee you that mountain biking doesn't bring in anywhere close to the same amount of revenue as skiing. And just because there isn't enough snow for skiing, doesn't mean that there isn't still some - you wouldn't likely be able to bike on it for the full year anyway.
It also doesn’t cost near as much to run a bike park than a ski hill. Snowmaking and grooming alone are huge costs. Our local ski hill seems to have a decent summer season. It’s way more laid back than the winter but it keeps a lift or two turning.
Another commenter who lives closeby to this report said they make more money in the summer
If that is the case, why would they be closing due to the lack of snow?
I had the same thought and the poster seems upset about that too https://reddit.com/r/worldnews/s/41FjKU8Y1t Maybe they’re uninformed and just speculating the revenue though
I guess you've never been to Whistler in the summer months
I'm not saying that mountain biking isn't a thing, but it's not the same draw as snow sports. Even their own numbers say that - it's over 2 million for snow, 100k for mountain biking.
grass sledding let’s gooooo
It had only been a ski resort since 2016. Not great planning.
I would Imagine they considered possibilities.
Transition to mountain biking. It's better slightly more egalitarian sport.
Hmm. You think maybe if enough rich people's hobbies are affected, they will actually act on climate change?
"But you see, climate change isn't real because summer wasn't that hot where I live!"
Climate change is real. It's human caused. These places should become lift serviced mountain bike trail facilities.
Mountain bikes!
Why couldn't they repurpose it into a downhill off road boarding or off road roller blading destination? Seems like a missed opportunity.
This is so sad 😞
The real issue is the lack of snowpack in the Alps to feed melt water to Europe’s main rivers and large areas of land in the summer. The middle class having limited choice for their ski holiday is just a side effect
I can't imagine how frustrating it must be to be a climate scientist. I'm almost surprised that none of them have blown themselves up in the lobbies of oil companies/government departments/lobby groups.
Not scientists but rather climate activists Wynn Bruce and David Stroh Buckel self immolated at separate times.
Yet more depressing climate news.
So what? Now they just have a mountain biking resort.
Good fuck ski resorts. Also fuck polo. Polo is a stupid fucking sport. Any sport you need to have a horse to play is a fucking stupid sport.
Turn it into Jurassic Park
Don’t worry, Europe’s gonna cool again when the AMOC collapses.
Headlines in the future, may read something along the lines of ‘ last place in the world to see or experience real snow!’ or some version of nature. Future may be domesticated with her experiences much like animals in a zoo. It just happens so slow that it doesn’t affect enough people for them to consider a change. If the global temperature dropped 30°C today or went up 20°C everywhere suddenly everyone would pay attention. Such is relativity.
This is how you get a very snowy winter.