Climate change forces ski area Wachtberg to close - an era ends!

Climate change forces ski area Wachtberg to close - an era ends!

Another ski area falls victim to climate change! After 25 years, the ski lift on the Wachtberg in Weyregg on the Attersee closed the doors. Wolfgang Spießberger, the operator of the family company, confirmed that "it just couldn't work". The mild weather and the drastic decline in the snow days have presented the winter sports industry in the region with intolerable challenges.

The ski lift on the Wachtberg, which has been in operation since 1963 and was handed over to the local sports club in 1999, has increasingly proven to be unprofitable for economic reasons. The impending loss of intake caused by too few skiing agents caused even the use of volunteers by the ski club not sufficient to maintain the operation. There were disagreements with the landowner and financial hurdles that could not be overcome.

ski area death due to climate change

The winter sports industry is not only confronted with dramatic changes in Austria, but also in Germany and Switzerland. As the Jennerbahn has already announced the withdrawal from classic skiing in the Berchtesgadener Land, the image of shrinking winter sports continues. Stefan Höllbacher, head of the Berchtesgaden winter sports school, described the step as "catastrophe for the whole region". The decline in alpine skiers not only moves from snow poverty, but also from poor conditions that hold many skiers.

The fate of the Wachtberg is just another example in a number of decommissioned fates of ski areas in the Alps. The pressure to adapt to the new climatic realities is getting stronger - and the days of alpine winter sports, as we knew it, seem to be counted. The creeping changes not only challenge the operators, but also throw a shadow on the future of alpine skiing as a whole.