Global warming: when the hopes of the Alti Aigoual station melt in the February sun

At the foot of the ski resort, in Prat-Peyrot, last Saturday, the snow only occupied a few square meters. FREE NOON – AD. b.

Ski lifts stopped. FREE NOON – AD. b.

18°C recorded Monday in Esperou, in the Gard. The "last chance season" is off to a bad start for the managers of Alti Aigoual, more affected than ever by global warming. There remains the winter holidays, awaited with apprehension.

Prat Peyrot, first weekend of February. Children take advantage of the last white perimeter that has resisted the sun's rays: a few square meters right at the foot of the slopes, a stone's throw from the cannons. We can't ski, of course, but we can still take out the sled and throw a few snowballs at each other.

The rest ? Everything is dry. The ski lifts have been stopped for two weeks already, the sun is beating down. Some are in t-shirts. A desperate climate in the heart of winter.

"If a station like ours closes, we won't be alone"

"This season, we opened a total of fifteen days, we did two weekends, laments Denis Boissière, co-manager of the Alti-Aigoual station. And there, next weekend, we hoped to have snowfall again, but nothing is sure." And to explain the difficulties that arise from it. "We have eight full-time employees, seasonal contracts… And we can't bring technical unemployment into play. All this is added to the explosion in electricity prices, insurance, etc. If a ski resort like ours closes, we won't be the only ones…". 

A little further down, at Esperou, the ski rentals are obviously closed. Just like the Le Touring hotel, for several seasons now. In Val d'Aigoual, this very large commune which goes from Valleraugue to l'Esperou, "only one hotel remains", confirms the mayor Joël Gauthier .  "It's sure that if the ski resort doesn't operate two and a half months a year, it's complicated. And that’s what we’ve been experiencing for five or six years. On Monday, it was still 18 °C in Esperou!  So we have to find solutions. We are still the green lung of the towns of Nîmes, Montpellier and even Alès… We decided to launch a feasibility study to evolve into four-season activities.  We offer hiking activities, but that does not doesn't do everything. "

If the delegates of the ski resort, hired for ten years by the municipality (end of lease 2029) do not take off against the Cévennes national park (1) which according to them slows down their four-season development, the mayor, for his part, believes & ;quot;that we can work in good harmony with the park. Elected officials must adapt, they must have another vision of the territory." And he adds that overall, tourist attendance, over the whole year, is not in decline, quite the contrary: "We have recorded +27.4% attendance with significant attendance from spring and summer."

This is confirmed by Frédéric Doussière, owner of the restaurant Le Passage, always a popular address at Esperou in all seasons: "For me, the best season of the year is October November, with all the people going mushrooms. Even when there is no snow, there is activity. The problem is that we have a lot of seasonal workers at Esperou. But when people know that we are open all year round, they come."  For this fine connoisseur of the place, there is no inevitability: "We have already had years without snow. Like in 1992. I'm hopeful that it will come back starting Sunday. 

(1) Tensions exist between the resort managers and the park over the development of certain activities (read our previous editions). This Friday, at 6 p.m., Francis Cavalier-Bénézet room at Esperou, a meeting is organized by a collective of citizens. The theme is as follows: bring the Cévennes National Park to really take into account that it has settled on an inhabited territory, by people who want to make a living from their work with a social level minimum", indicate the organizers. The station managers indicate that they are not the initiators of this meeting, but that they will participate in it. I subscribe to read more