French Pyrenees | The difficult reconversion of small ski resorts

(Porté-Puymorens) Threatened by the lack of snow due to global warming, three small ski resorts in the Pyrénées-Orientales (in the south of France adjoining the Spanish border) have joined forces to develop activities all year round, but their project is singled out by environmentalists.

From the chairlift which rises to an altitude of 2,500 meters to the coveted natural snow, Eric Charre, director of the project called “Trio”, shows the lower part of the Porté-Puymorens winter sports resort: there, not a snowflake at the beginning of January.

But the public company, which also includes the Cambre d’Aze and Formiguères resorts, has “already made it possible to maintain activity” on the three sites, he assures, disheveled by the icy wind which sweeps the slopes, near which snow cannons are placed.

“Now, we are being asked to accelerate diversification and we will prove every year that we are accelerating it,” he adds. Around him, skiers quickly jump off the chairlift to begin the descent.

In addition to restaurants, shops, hiking or mountain biking, diversification must include other offers valid in all seasons, so as not to rely only on snow, which is less and less present. They still remain to be defined.

“We are currently working with the teams” to set up these “outdoor activities, but the final choice has not yet been made”, specifies to AFP Hermeline Malherbe, socialist president of the departmental council which is the main shareholder of the local public company Trio.

Water shortage

In the meantime, the Regional Chamber of Accounts (which verifies local expenditure) has deemed the current “model based on revenues mainly from alpine skiing” “fragile”, taking into account the “expected climatic conditions” for the next three decades.

Moreover, she estimates in a report dated December, that to the lack of snow is added the shortage of water which could make the production of artificial snow problematic in this department, the most affected in France by Drought.

As a result, this “innovative and ambitious” project to rethink Catalan mountain tourism in the 21st^e century” risks “quickly finding itself in deficit, without sufficient revenue linked to summer activity, a necessary condition for a transition to a four-season model”. According to the Chamber, Trio must “review its business plan.”

“In spite of proclaiming everywhere that we are going to do four seasons, most of the public money invested concerns […] facilities intended for alpine skiing,” criticizes David Berrué, local spokesperson for the EELV party (Europe Ecology the Greens) showing, from a nearby mountain, the absence of natural snow around Cambre d’Aze.

“The millions of euros mobilized to change chairlifts could be used for the reconversion of a few thousand jobs in the region”, excluding skiing, he estimates.

“Eco-extremists”

A point of view that M certainly does not share^me Malherbe: “The desire of a certain number of extremists and sometimes, I would say, eco-extremists, is to put the mountain under cover”.

“We have the desire to adapt, while continuing to live in our Catalan mountains, with jobs and public services, to accommodate a certain number of people, summer and winter,” says the president of the border department with the ‘Spain.

For Mr. Berrué, “we can always imagine doing summer sledging, water sports centers or tree climbing courses in ski resorts”, but “no four-season tourism system will be able to bring in as much money as skiing. We must prepare the territory for this situation.”

“Skiing will stop, it’s inevitable,” he adds, believing that “we must maintain existing installations as long as we can and stop modernizing or replacing equipment which risks not being amortized.” and worsen the debt of communities.