‘Ghost resorts’: as hundreds of ski slopes lie abandoned, will nature reclaim the Alps? | Ski resorts | The Guardian

W hen 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. The skeletal remains of a once-busy ski lift in Céüze 2000, in France’s Hautes-Alpes department. The resort, which had welcomed skiers for 85 years, never reopened after March 2018 as smaller snowfalls in successive seasons made it unviable.Photograph: Thomas Valentin/The Guardian The Céüze 2000 resort when snow was plentiful. The resort closed permanently during the 2020 winter due to a lack of snow.Photograph: Thomas Valentin/The Guardian There are 113 abandoned ski lifts in France, nearly three-quarters of which are in protected areas.Photograph: Thomas Valentin/The Guardian Ecologist Nicolas Masson is part of a campaign to dismantle old ski infrastructure.Photograph: Thomas Valentin/The Guardian Berries can be see on dog rose shrubs which are starting to flourish now the piste is no longer cleared for skiers.Photograph: Thomas Valentin/The Guardian The hills around the former resort are home to some of Europe’s rarest and most protected wildlife.Photograph: Thomas Valentin/The Guardian Richard Klein believes the resort should have been saved.Photograph: Thomas Valentin/The Guardian A poster from the resort’s 80th anniversary celebrations.Photograph: Thomas Valentin/The Guardian 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 2000 resort when snow was plentiful. 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. The resort closed permanently during the 2020 winter due to a lack of snow. Photograph: Thomas Valentin/The Guardian “It was costing us more to keep it open than...

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