"When Ceuze 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. 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."
"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. It was costing more to keep it open than closed We looked into using artificial snow but realised that would delay the inevitable"
Ceuze 2000, an 85-year-old resort in the southern French Alps, closed after unreliable snowfall made operations financially unviable. Snowfall became unreliable from the 1990s, and the resort could not meet the three-month season needed for viability, operating for only a month and a half in its final winter. Seasonal opening costs reached as much as €450,000, prompting closure to avoid debt. More than 186 French resorts have closed permanently as the snow line rises. Thousands of abandoned structures are decaying, some contaminating surrounding earth, prompting debate over removing infrastructure or allowing nature to reclaim mountain landscapes.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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