A member of GEO went sledging in the Alps to scare themselves distracted from political news and got even more alarmed

Last month my friends invited me to go sledging in the Swiss Alps, by train. We met a CNN reporter at our hotel and I contributed some story strands for her to include in a reflection on sledding which was then published on CNN travel Sunday 23^rd Feb (here). Our side conversation about climate change in the Alps was however not included. The reporter’s father Bud Ward, is an award-winning climate change writer and editor. It thus struck me that reflections on the realities of higher temperatures and lack of snowfall and the ways in which these add some challenging aspects to the visit and some heartbreaking realizations about climate change for frontline communities were not included in the rather feel good piece promoting travel to the Alps.

It was a dawning realization as we ascended the Alps. Our train came into the Interlaken where we needed to change trains for Grindelwald and my friends said, “So much green! This should all be snow. Look at the mountaintops.” I looked up. The tops of the surrounding mountains were exposed rock, not snow, and along the lakeside grass was all around us. The billboards advertising the mountains ahead showed everything covered in snow. When we arrived in Grindelwald, we saw snow, and active melting. It was warm. Our hotel room faced a beautiful blue glacier tucked way up in the facing crags, but photos and narratives at the hotel lobby told of a different story. That glacier used to come down as far as the town in some years. The concierge, a local, showed me photographs. He said, “Now we are lucky this year, we got a snowfall at holiday. The last few years, nothing.” Hearing this made my heart hurt.

The warming temperatures and inconsistent snowfall do not fit anyone’s narrative about this wintersport tourist destination. Climate change is altering the entire scene, the entire Alpine wintersport culture. Less snowfall and higher temperatures mean that by early afternoon the snow is turning to slush in some spots further down the mountain and it is impossible to complete a run. You walk to the train/bus/lift. The ski lifts move through potential stops, stops where there is no snow, just green grass. The first day we hit the slush along with teems of people oncompetition and had to walk our sledges/velogemels down to the waiting buses. Everyone was in good spirits regardless. The annual velogemel world championship is tradition dating back to the 1990s after all.

Up in the mountains, by early afternoon, the slopes are a sheet of ice as the thin layer of snow groomed into place the night before is worn away by skiers. This makes for some treacherous conditions. I saw blood in the snow and several skier accidents further up the hill on the ski/sledge shared routes. I didn’t take the warning. Less than an hour later downhill, I hurt myself when I careened out of control downhill on a sheet of ice and collided with an exposed rockface. It is still possible to enjoy and engage in the wintersports, obviously with an open mind to modifications and adaptations, and a positive attitude.

These rather privileged remarks by myself on the realities of doing wintersports under conditions of climate change, however are indicative of much bigger questions: What kinds of adaptations are the wintersport industry currently using? How long before these current modifications need to change? Are they going to make their own snow, like we do in the States? How linked is Swiss economy to the wintersport season? How will these Alpine villages shift if wintersport tourism is no longer viable? What does this lack of snow mean for all the European rivers that start in the Alps? These interrelated questions are all woven together into how we can get a handle on tourism and climate change. The GEO group offers MOOCs focused on this topic (here) and the whole Master programme of tourism, society and environment (MTO) at Wageningen University is devoted to addressing the societal and environmental challenges the world’s largest economic sector, tourism, generates here).