 Poster: A snowHead
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Given that Zermatt is arguably the world's most spectacular ski resort ... with some of the most epic and panoramic piste skiing on the planet ... boasting some of the strictest mountain conservation policies in the Alps ...
https://www.matterhornparadise.ch/en/Company/Environment-and-sustainability
... it's perhaps surprising that the resort hosts one of the biggest and most established heli-skiing operations in the world ...
https://www.air-zermatt.ch/wordpress/en/fly/tourist-flights-zermatt/heliskiing-zermatt/
I've been visiting Zermatt, on and off (and rarely these days), since the mid 1960s. In my mid-teens I stood in a cablecar queue with my late father for at least an hour to get to Furi and upwards to the big glacial territory that links with Italy (the system is infinitely more efficient and high-capacity these days). As early as that - 50 years ago - the tourist boom was beginning. Once we'd endured the big chunk of morning wasted in a queue we were up in a vast playground of snow, with the Matterhorn towering above us. Boy was it worth it.
What's worrying, as the 21st century rolls out, are the climatic and environmental threats to Zermatt's snows, its 'permanent' ice ... and the very rock on which its ski lifts lay their foundations. Could Air Zermatt's operations be seen as symbolic of decadent ignorance of the pollution caused by its own engines and the mass air travel consumed to reach the town itself? What is the long-term conservation plan ... in holistic terms ... of this magical place? Is there any overall intelligence in the business of skiing?
Modern-day Zermatt hosts (at Täsch, the next village down the valley) one of the biggest 'park and ride' operations in skiing. "2,100 covered parking spaces ... [and] ... over 1,000 parking spaces offered by private parties." That's for those who don't really want to take the train ... and opt to catch it just for its final stretch of a couple of miles.
Is all this sustainable? Or is it one element of a planet that is heating out of control? An element in a country - Switzerland - that supposedly prides itself as one of the most beautiful tourist destinations on earth?
Last Sunday, The Sunday Times published a piece by Nicholas Hellen refering to "The Matterhorn ... cracking as the permafrost at its core starts to thaw and its ice covering retreats."
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/matterhorn-starts-to-lose-majesty-as-melting-ice-chips-away-at-rock-rg030c88t
48 hours ago, at 6pm, Zermatt was hit (no rain, just hot sunshine) by a sudden flood of thick grey water bursting the banks of a river that flows through the heart of the town, flooding a number of buildings with great force. A river that has its source on slopes well above 3000m. Several locals captured the raging torrent on video ...
https://www.facebook.com/groups/325182624251298/permalink/1876682835767928/
https://www.20min.ch/schweiz/news/story/Triftbach-ueberflutet-Teile-von-Zermatt-10782146
WHAT is skiing ... as a global community ... going to do to conserve and protect the very fabric and snows of the mountains that we value so greatly?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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It’s almost certainly too late to save the skiing in the longer term, perhaps even the medium term (20 years ?) 
Their strategy is to attract the south East Asian market by developing the Alpine crossing with continuous cable cars from Cervina to Zermatt. The last link from klein Matterhorn to testa Grigia now has consent.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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@Davina Goldballs, ....most tourists come to Zermatt to see the forbidding mountain and cute village and cute railway sitting in sun-bathed splendour. The origins of the mass tourism started not with skiing but with the English-fuelled fascination with 'the Sublime' - 'Chasing Dragons' documents it well. It is likely to continue, even if to see large chunks of the Matterhorn fall off. It is a pile of metamorphic rotten rock, like the peaks around us on the other side of the Valais.
Aviation accounts for around 2% of global emissions, and the ski industry will limp on with reducing revenues, aggressively competing and failing instruction offices, and stupid levels of artificial snow-making.
Meanwhile, industry and agriculture will continue to be the big emitters, and the west will export its emissions to the east by switching heavy industrial production there, as they have been doing. Population growth, industrial growth, agricultural sprawl into the wilderness - they are the things which will see the world continue to creak and croak and change....
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"Their strategy is to attract the south East Asian market by developing the Alpine crossing with continuous cable cars from Cervina to Zermatt. The last link from klein Matterhorn to testa Grigia now has consent."
I did wonder what the point of the new link was, from the Skiers point of view - never considered that they might be concentrating on 'foot passengers' !
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Davina Goldballs wrote: |
WHAT is skiing ... as a global community ... going to do to conserve and protect the very fabric and snows of the mountains that we value so greatly? |
wristbands, anyone?
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I don't think we are going to be able to get away from the aircraft as a mass transit vehicle in the short term, however we should be able to mitigate at least part of it using a 'last and first mile' concept. Zermatt (as an example) is lucky that they instigated the car-free village from very early on and have moved their covered parking down to Taesch, forcing the last and first mile to be completed by a more environmentally sound option - why can that last and first mile not be moved all the way back to Geneva/Zurich/Basel airports and force the train to take the strain of the last leg? If it made accessible enough then there is no reason not to. Once people get (back) used to using a train, rather than wasting hours of their transfer days in the hell that is airports it will become a new normal. I do appreciate that I'm writing this from a European point of view where the train system is useful and punctual and that in the UK it is not necessarily so....
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| grollox wrote: |
| If it made accessible enough then there is no reason not to. Once people get (back) used to using a train, rather than wasting hours of their transfer days in the hell that is airports it will become a new normal. I do appreciate that I'm writing this from a European point of view where the train system is useful and punctual and that in the UK it is not necessarily so.... |
ok that's better than my suggestion 
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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This is somewhat related as it's about trains but really about public transport.
We live about 16 miles away from Manchester city centre and on the outskirts there are all day car parks which cost between £3.50 - £5. Four of us got the train on Saturday at a total cost of £31.
It would have been far cheaper going by car.
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I heard most European countries subsidize their train network with petrol tax. Is that so?
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Vienna introduced a €365 ticket for their transit system and saw an increase of 28% in use (read decrease in car use) - undoubtably this is subsidised, but from what revenue I don't know - the upshot is that they made public transport affordable and more people used it. If that was read across to national railways you could viably see tour operators offering a 'train to slopes' as an option alongside flying and self driving. I would be more than happy to arrive in the Alps by train like James Bond in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service 
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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As an often solo traveler, I prefer public transport. It's a drag to drive many hours all by myself with no one to keep me awake. On a train, I can simply sleep, read, or admire the scenery.
But as I'm not typical, so if the rest of the population doesn't support it, it won't be there for me to use.
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@davidof, ...now that's interesting. I knew that water vapour is a global warmer but the figures and modelling is extremely interesting.
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You know it makes sense.
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It is too late to save the European Alps.
Global boiling is taking hold.
I like cheap flights.
There is no way I am sitting on a cr*ppy train for 12 hours, when an airplane will do it in 2.
You just gotta roll with it.
Ride the Alps while they last.
The future is artificial snow and shorter seasons.
Or the Himalayas.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| Whitegold wrote: |
There is no way I am sitting on a cr*ppy train for 12 hours, when an airplane will do it in 2.
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You forgot to add the journey time from home to airport, the 2 hours you need to be at the airport before your flight, plus the transfer time from arrival airport to ski resort. 
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Poster: A snowHead
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| grollox wrote: |
| why can that last and first mile not be moved all the way back to Geneva/Zurich/Basel airports and force the train to take the strain of the last leg? If it made accessible enough then there is no reason not to. Once people get (back) used to using a train, rather than wasting hours of their transfer days in the hell that is airports it will become a new normal. |
But you still need to battle though the airport to get to the train station?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| davidof wrote: |
| https://www.newscientist.com/article/2207886-it-turns-out-planes-are-even-worse-for-the-climate-than-we-thought/ |
Interesting piece.
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@rob@rar, ...the thing which irritates me is the dreadful pricing strategy of the trains, presumably because they cross national boundaries. I would use the train if the pricing was better, using variable pricing to fill the often near-empty trains from Geneva to Sierre.
These seem to be happening.....
https://www.fleetcarma.com/electric-pickup-truck-market/
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| valais2 wrote: |
| @rob@rar, ...the thing which irritates me is the dreadful pricing strategy of the trains, presumably because they cross national boundaries. I would use the train if the pricing was better, using variable pricing to fill the often near-empty trains from Geneva to Sierre. |
Have a lot of sympathy with this as I find the whole booking of cross-EU train tickets very frustrating. It's easy enough when I book the Eurostar service to Bourg St Maurice: tickets released on a certain date (was a couple of weeks ago for next winter) and you know that the cheapest tickets will sell first, so peak dates are best booked asap. Works in a similar way to booking a plane ticket. But if I want a different ski destination or the freedom to travel other than a Sat-Sat booking I have to book tickets with different train operators, Eurostar plus other services. That's when it gets unnecessary complicated, with different dates for when tickets are released by different train operators. Invariably I find it easier to fly or drive. When it is as easy to book trains tickets for cross EU journeys as it is to book flights then I'll probably use the train more often.
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@JohnMo, ...it’s actually quite sensible.
Winter climbing increasingly looks more attractive than summer - ice gluing the choss (see below) - and a lot of the Valais is choss to 3000+....
Definition
choss. Noun. Rock that is unsuitable for rock climbing, generally due to: 1, softness, the rock will not support the weight of the climber, 2: wet and possibly unstable, that is, the possibility of large slabs falling off is unknown, 3: too much organic growth on the rocks, ie, moss or plant life. (informal) chaos.
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@valais2, I am not really expert enough to say. “Anonymous” mountain guides being quoted does not inspire confidence. But I guess it would be rather career limiting for a mountain guide to openly call for a closure.
The Matterhorn base camp (Hörnlihütte) is at 3260m. The climbing only starts from there. Up to the base camp it is a relatively easy walk (although you do need to be fairly fit to do it). Above that should be permafrost but our definition of perma[nent] is rather being changed.
Here is the Zermatt website article after going through Google translate (my German reading skills are just about up to reading the article but I am not sure I would want to post my attempt at a translation).
| Quote: |
Following the request of individual anonymous mountain guides to close the Matterhorn, the community of Zermatt, Zermatt Tourismus and the outdoor provider Zermatters confirm that the Matterhorn is not closed.
"Matterhorn should be locked" was to read an article in the Sunday newspaper of 4 August 2019 in many media. The headline would be attributed to the demand of individual mountain guides who, however, all want to remain anonymous. That the demand is not implemented, confirm the community Zermatt, Zermatt Tourism and the outdoor provider Zermatters, which unites all Zermatt mountain guides. "The only decision on a blockage, the municipality of Zermatt, so we do not understand the media hype that is made to the statement of individual," said municipal president Romy Biner-Hauser.
"Blocking would be absurd," says mountain guide Benedikt Perren von Zermatters. "Mountaineering is a risky sport - it's something that everyone who works professionally in the high mountains is aware of, and of course we strive to assess and minimize risks." Therefore, the Zermatt mountain guides do not offer guided tours when critical situations are foreseeable. Also, recommendations will be issued.
Basically, it is the responsibility of all climbers to find out about the local conditions and to assess the situation. If the Zermatt mountain guides decide on an ascent on the Matterhorn, this is done on the basis of years of experience and expertise on the mountain.
"Blocking would undermine the principle of individual responsibility, and the Matterhorn would then be" open "or" closed "even though the status would not be guaranteed even if the status was open," says Benedikt Perren. Therefore, the community Zermatt, Zermatt Tourism and Zermatters clearly oppose a prophylactic blocking and call on all climbers to never climb the Matterhorn without mountain guides and to always follow the recommendations of Zermatters.
In 2003, a Matterhorn closure occurred - but this did not happen prophylactically, but after a large rock cut the Hörnli route had to be cleared of loose and not yet erupted rock. This work was done by local guides. Climbing the same route at the same time would have been too dangerous.
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