More Than 180 Ski Resorts Have Closed In France Alone As Snow Continues Retreat To Higher Altitudes
When Céüze 2000 ski resort closed at the end of the season in 2018, the workers assumed they would be back the following winter. Maps of the pistes were left stacked beside a stapler; the staff rota pinned to the wall. Six years on, a yellowing newspaper dated 8 March 2018 sits folded on its side, as if someone has just flicked through it during a quiet spell. A half-drunk bottle of water remains on the table.
The Céüze resort in the southern French Alps had been open for 85 years and was one of the oldest in the country. Today, it is one of scores of ski resorts abandoned across France – part of a new landscape of “ghost stations”. More than 186 have been permanently closed already, raising questions about how we leave mountains – among the last wild spaces in Europe – once the lifts stop running. As global heating pushes the snow line higher across the Alps, thousands of structures are being left to rot – some of them breaking down and contaminating the surrounding earth, driving debate about what should happen to the remnants of old ways of life – and whether to let nature reclaim the mountains.
Snowfall at Céüze started becoming unreliable in the 1990s. To be financially viable, the resort needed to be open for at least three months. In that last winter, it only managed a month and a half. For the two years before that it had not been able to operate at all. Opening the resort each season cost the local authority as much as €450,000 (£390,000). As the season got shorter, the numbers no longer added up. To avoid a spiral of debt, the decision was made to close.
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The Mountain Wilderness association estimates that there are more than 3,000 abandoned structures dotted around French mountains, slowly degrading Europe’s richest wild terrain. This includes military, industrial and forestry waste, such as old cables, bits of barbed wire, fencing and old machinery. Céüze ski resort is fast becoming one of these pollutants. The little wooden cabin at the bottom of the first button lift is shedding insulation. Ropes once used to mark out the piste hang in tatters and bits of plastic are falling off a pylon. The old sheds at each end of the ski lifts often still contain transformers, asbestos, motor oils and greases. Over time, these substances seep into the soil and water. Corrosion and rust from metal structures left over from the second world war, such as anti-tank rails and metal spikes, have led to changes in plant species in the surrounding area, potentially offering a vision of what could happen if pylons are left to rust over the coming decades.
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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/dec/27/alps-france-skiing-snow-warming-resorts-closing-ceuze-landscape
= new reply since forum marked as read
In Germany in 1862 it was proven that the more CO 2 you have in a body of gas the more
heat it will hold.