Italian Snow Resorts: A New Reality

/From special correspondents in Italy/

The sun is slowly setting behind the mountains and the last few skiers are moving on the slope, which shines white between the wooded hills.

In the village of Nova Ponente, which lies in the Italian Dolomites, the lift remains in operation despite increasingly uncertain conditions. The area is almost snow-free in mid-December when we visit, and the only slope there is covered exclusively by the artificial one.

Previously, there was no shortage of snow in Nova Ponente (also known by the German name Deutschnofen), which lies at an altitude of around 1,300 meters. Today, however, it is an increasingly scarce “goods”.

Lift operator Robert Pichler admits that keeping the resort running is not easy under the current conditions.

“It doesn’t make me any money. The only reason I keep doing it is because I want to make sure our kids have a place to ski,” he tells us as his teenage son Stefan, who skis professionally, trains on a local slope.

Pichler is financially supported by the local community, which appreciates having its own ski slope right in the village.

Ski resorts across the Alps are struggling with dwindling snow abundance caused by climate change.

According to the calculations of the research center Eurac Research, which is based in Bolzano, the snowfall in the European mountains decreased between 1920 and 2020 by an average of hardly negligible 34 percent.

As a result, the resorts have to rely heavily on artificial snow in particular. However, its production is often complicated by excessively high temperatures.

The loss of snow is also noticeable in the Italian resort of Paganella, which is very popular with the Czech clientele. There is enough of it on the top, which lies at 2125 meters. However, the slopes that lead from the intermediate station of the cable car to the parking lot are only covered with snow around mid-December. Skiers who don’t want to go down the cable car meander on them between sections that reveal grassy areas.

“Of course we are feeling climate change. Everyone is feeling it,” says Francesca Clementel, who is in charge of Paganella Ski’s press and marketing department, when we meet her a short distance from where the lifts start.

But he learns to live with the uncertainty that changes bring. They have adapted their strategy to the new reality, and it seems to be working for the visitors they have no shortage of at the moment.

“We don’t advertise that we have a lot of snow, but simply say that we are open. Our new strategy is to show the ski area as it is,” explains Clementelová.

“The residents of the city experience weeks when there is snow on the trees and everywhere around. But it melts quickly, so only lucky tourists have a chance to experience something like this. It therefore makes no sense to use pictures full of snow for promotion,” he adds, adding that they do not hide from customers that sometimes quality skiing can only be done on higher slopes.

The Alpe Cermis resort in Val di Fiemme, a valley in the southwest of the Dolomites, which will become one of the venues for the Winter Olympics in February, is dealing with similar questions. At the beginning of the ongoing winter season, they had – similar to some previous years – the problem of opening their longest slope, which undulates all the way down to the village of Cavalese.

According to Francesca Misconel, who is in charge of the resort’s marketing affairs, it is indisputable that images of snow-covered trees sell better for ski holidays than green landscapes that are more reminiscent of autumn or spring. That is why Alpe Cermis continues to bet on these images.

They obviously score points with the Czech clientele. You can hear Czech on every corner on the cable cars and in the nearby businesses, and if you didn’t know you were in Italy, you could easily mistake the parking lot under the ski resort for any one here, thanks to the frequency of Czech license plates.

Although skiers notice that there is less snow in and around the ski resort than before and than the promotional materials may show, this is apparently not something that would deter them from visiting.

“Let’s at least be happy for this,” says Kamila from the Czech Republic, who came to Alpe Cermis with her children before Christmas on vacation all the way from Bali. From the days when she visited the center with her parents as a child, she remembers the surrounding hills completely covered in snow. According to her, even the current conditions favor quality skiing.

Misconelová admits that the center has strongly felt the effects of the changing climate in recent years. “Fortunately, we have snow cannons, which are indispensable for us today,” he says, noting that much of the white blanket on the slopes is not nature’s fault, but technology. The number of snow machines that take care of the slopes there is rounded to 250.

According to her, they carry out the process of producing artificial snow with the utmost respect for nature, but they prefer not to emphasize to the public that they mainly rely on artificial snow.

“Many people are very sensitive about this topic. They think that by using technical snow we are destroying the mountains, although that is not true,” he says, adding that they use rainwater collected during the summer to make snow.

Resorts today are increasingly beginning to realize that relying only on the winter season, which is noticeably shorter over time and the conditions during it are becoming more and more unpredictable, is too risky. They are therefore trying to diversify their offer so that they are able to offer visitors enjoyment all year round.

In Paganella, a few years ago, they decided to start a project that aims to attract tourists with mountain bikes in the warmer months. Only a week after the ski season ends, the lifts start taking cyclists to the top.

“Thanks to this, we operate all year round and there is no major break between the winter and summer seasons,” explains Clementelová.

Over the years, they have managed to improve the fact that they have more overnight guests during the spring, summer and autumn than in the winter season. According to Clementel, this is quite rare for a ski resort. “Most of the ski resorts that were born out of the winter season tend to have a lot more overnight stays in the winter season. We’ve managed to balance that out.”

Despite the successes outside the main season, he admits that winter will remain key for them in the future. “Skiing is skiing. People always wait impatiently for the season to start. We probably don’t have any other sport right now that attracts so many people at once,” he says flatly.

Despite the complications, even small resorts like the one in Nova Ponente are not planning to stop skiing.

Just a short distance away, in the village of Petersberg, there is an even smaller lift that is in operation even in mid-December, when the hills there are almost bare. The snow, which was taken care of by the cannons, covers only the most necessary parts around the slope and the lift. While children in professional equipment improve their skiing here, their parents proudly look down on them.

Similar places show that, despite the complications, the popular winter sport in Italy remains an integral part not only of tourism, but also of the culture and life of local communities.

In the future, however, it could disappear from the everyday life of society at large, the Italian Consumers’ Association warned already in the fall. The prices of ski passes across Italy keep climbing and are becoming unaffordable for many skiers. There is a danger that skiing will soon be the privilege of only the rich.