In 50 years, winter sports have transformed the mountains, bringing prosperity to local communities. But the French Alps are heating up twice as fast as the rest of the planet. At low and medium altitudes, the lack of snow is making skiing almost impossible. With the Alps losing their white coats due to warmer temperatures in winter, what future do smaller resorts really have?
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00:00In 50 years, winter sports have transformed the mountains, bringing prosperity to local
00:22communities.
00:24There were crowds of people. Look, it was extraordinary.
00:30But the French Alps are heating up, and twice as fast as the rest of the planet.
00:35At low and medium altitudes, a lack of snow has left no illusions.
00:40We know very well it's going to end someday.
00:43Without their white coat, what future do smaller resorts really have?
00:57Between the Southern Alps and Provence, Le Grand Prix is turning into a ghost resort.
01:03There are no hire shops, no more ski school, and the lifts are out of action.
01:10Here, the chapter on snow sports is drawing to a close.
01:18We're basically selling off everything that we needed to function as a ski resort.
01:22It's all going, the chairlifts, the button lifts, the piste bashers, and all the snow-making equipment.
01:31Since the 1970s, the Alps have lost a month's quantity of snow at low and medium altitude.
01:38Snow cannons, expensive to run, and only effective in low temperatures, are no longer enough to compensate.
01:46Here, skiing has become a financial black hole.
01:56Long ago, it was a machine for making money, at least for Le Grand Prix.
02:00But it hasn't brought in any money for the town for a long time now.
02:04In 2008, there was already a deficit of 80,000 euros, and for 2024, we're at 412,000 euros.
02:11That's about 15% of the budget the town needs to function. It's huge.
02:18The patatines are a bit like raclette, but slightly different.
02:21There's potato, melted cheese, and charcuterie.
02:25In France, 120,000 jobs are relying on the ski sector.
02:30This restaurant has been in the family for three generations, and is the resort's last remaining business.
02:36Closing the ski area is a major threat.
02:41It was heartbreaking, but it was never a question of closing.
02:44On the contrary, we had two solutions.
02:46Throw up our hands, or roll up our sleeves.
02:49And we chose to roll up our sleeves.
02:51We made renovations in the autumn, as they were passing sentence and saying,
02:55we're going to close the resort. We said, OK, close it, we'll bounce back.
03:01The aim now? Drawing in skiers from other nearby resorts at the end of their day's skiing.
03:08Throughout the February holidays, we've got something on every evening.
03:11On Mondays, it's the paper lantern hike.
03:13That's hiking around in nature in groups, finding yourself, well,
03:16like being lost really at night in the middle of the mountains.
03:20Since Covid, increasing numbers of holidaymakers have sought the peace of nature.
03:26And the sheer cost of a ski holiday is putting off others.
03:34A week's skiing vacation when you're a family of four, five or six people is expensive.
03:38So you see a lot of people who just come for some fresh air,
03:41to collect mushrooms or to take a hike,
03:44to take advantage of nature which is right there, beautiful and accessible.
03:49It's in your hands.
03:54In winter tourism, France sits at second place internationally, behind the United States.
04:00But it now faces a global threat.
04:02Adapting in the face of climate change.
04:09150 kilometres to the north, not far from Grenoble,
04:12Le Grand Serre was meant to have shut down too.
04:19I'm happy Le Grand Serre didn't close.
04:23Really, if the resort closed, I'd be sad because then we'd have to move house.
04:28Le Grand Serre would be nothing.
04:30It wouldn't even be a village without the resort.
04:35Thanks to civic action, Le Grand Serre gained a reprieve.
04:40Residents pooled their resources in an online pot
04:43and collected nearly 100,000 euros in two weeks.
04:50Enough to give the resort's bean counters some breathing space.
04:56It's the first time such a large resort would have had to close
04:59because of global warming and a lack of investment.
05:02So it made a lot of noise.
05:04It was on CNN, The Guardian in Australia and so on.
05:07A lot of people rallied and it was really successful.
05:10Between the press, local and social networks,
05:12we managed to get 97,000 euros of donations from over 800 people.
05:17Le Grand Serre has now become a symbol of the struggle small resorts face
05:21and a case study of what might await the future of mountain communities.
05:27We're the largest of the small resorts and the smallest of the large ones,
05:30so we occupy this pivotal point.
05:32A lot of people are watching us because what happens here
05:35could either be a model for success because we've managed to turn a corner
05:38or it could be the other way around
05:40and it will mean that the future will be complicated.
05:44Opening a spa, building a mountain shelter,
05:47even putting on a bicycle festival.
05:50Le Grand Serre is reinventing itself to survive
05:53and is on the hunt for an investor.
05:58Elected officials decided in the autumn
06:01that we couldn't keep taking the insurance risk on our own
06:04because we'd be putting the town in danger.
06:07So we're looking at how to transfer to an outside partner
06:11for the operation and investment in the ski area
06:14so they would handle the risk.
06:20At the heart of the Chartres mountains,
06:23residents in the small resort of Planolet
06:26have also seen the writing on the wall.
06:33On duty this morning is Bruno Cottave.
06:40I'm on the Coucheron ski lift.
06:46After an entire career running the ski lift,
06:49retiree Bruno is back on the job without pay,
06:52as a volunteer.
06:54I made my living off it my whole life.
06:57I thought I should give back a little bit.
07:00As for motivation, well, I learned to ski here,
07:03my children learned to ski here and I have a new granddaughter.
07:06I'd like her to learn to ski here too.
07:11Like Bruno,
07:14around 50 volunteers are running Planolet's ski lifts.
07:19Coming here, getting the little ones on the lift,
07:22it's a real pleasure.
07:28Reducing costs through the volunteers
07:31is the only way the resort can keep going.
07:34With only seven pistes, it's not a large ski area.
07:38Without any new investment,
07:41keeping the five 1970s-era button lifts running is paramount.
07:46The idea of the association was to keep skiing going,
07:49but without costing the town money,
07:52until it all comes to an end.
07:55We're not fooling ourselves, we know it's going to end someday.
08:00It's taken a long time for acceptance to set in.
08:04Just ten years ago, new infrastructure was still going up,
08:07like this chairlift built at a cost of two million euros,
08:10and now abandoned.
08:14I think there was still a part of the population
08:17and people at the top level
08:20who still believed that skiing was going to go on forever.
08:23That good year or bad year,
08:26the Chartreuse Range got enough of the right weather
08:29and there'd always be some snow.
08:33These are the skis we had when I was little.
08:36Can you see?
08:39We had leather boots like this.
08:42They had grooves here, like that, and you put that there,
08:45and then you twisted here and closed it,
08:48and it held the boot in place.
08:51Joelle Claret owns Planolet's only ski hire shop.
08:54Her parents opened it for business the year of her birth,
08:57and its history is that of snowsports itself.
09:00It pulled my parents out of the rural exodus.
09:03They were meant to go and work in the city,
09:06and the mayor said,
09:09Oh, no, we can't let all these people go like this.
09:12We need to develop the winter sports side of things.
09:15And it all started in 1960.
09:18My parents took a little van, they hired out four pairs of skis,
09:21and in 1964, my grandfather gave them some land,
09:24and they built the chalet.
09:28There were nearly 30 buses that would park all along the road,
09:31and then the people would come into Planolet.
09:34There were crowds of people, look.
09:37Look at all the people who came, it was extraordinary.
09:43You can see the snowblowers.
09:46There was so much snow that the snowplows couldn't get through,
09:49so the snowblowers would come and they'd get rid of the snow.
09:52There aren't any snowblowers today.
09:56It was great. You've never seen that, have you?
10:04Joëlle has already mourned the end of the golden age of winter sports.
10:09I took over my parents' shop, but my children won't take over from me.
10:14There'll be no snow in the future, we know that very well.
10:17We see something else in our future.
10:20And it's true that skiing is something wonderful.
10:24We're nostalgic, but when you think about the history of the planet,
10:27this period of skiing is very short.
10:30It hasn't even lasted 100 years.
10:37On the other side of the mountain,
10:39two locals have just taken over the running of four lifts.
10:46La Stasse offers a more extreme winter experience.
10:50It's super. It's like you're flying. Time stops. It's great.
10:57But they want to cut dependence on snow
10:59and are turning to a different season altogether.
11:02The Mickey button lift will let us have a summer version of this big airbag.
11:07They can set off with bikes, with mountain boards, with skates, whatever they want.
11:15On the side, there'll be another structure for jumping.
11:18With the button lift, you can come down with roller skis,
11:20with caterpillar skis, all-terrain scooters.
11:23There'll be ziplines, trampolines, games of skill.
11:26It'll really be a fun park.
11:29For now, summer activities account for a minimal part of ski resort's turnover.
11:35But that might change as tourists seek to escape
11:37the inevitable heat waves of global warming.
11:41In Austria, the birthplace of Alpine skiing,
11:44summer's become more profitable than winter.
11:47As the mountains lose their white blanket,
11:49one's thoughts for hope are the new opportunities revealed beneath.