The EconomistJanuary 27th 2018 International 5112 on Mount Sinai. Later they became places
of dread, where monsters lurked. The high-
est mountain in the Alps was known as
Montagne Maudite, the “cursed moun-
tain”, before becoming Mont Blanc.
In the age of reason, mountains became
natural wonders to be studied and con-
quered; Mont Blanc was first scaled in 1786.
They grew to fascinate the romantic imagi-
nation, offering a sense ofthe sublime,
hence visits by Lord Byron and the Shel-
leys in the early 19th century. Percy Shelley
penned a poem that became his declara-
tion of atheism; Mont Blanc as the antithe-
sis of Mount Sinai. Mary Shelley brought
together all three strands—the cursed, the
scientific, the romantic—when Franken-
stein’s monster confronted its creator on
one of the mountain’s glaciers.
As the 19th century progressed, the
draw of the Alps became medical, too. Da-
vos, in Switzerland, developed a reputa-
tion for treating tuberculosis with bright
sunlight and crisp air. Thomas Mann, who
nursed his consumptive wife in Davos,
used it as the setting for “The Magic Moun-
tain”. St Moritz, though known for its puri-
fying waters, chose to sell itself mainly to
fun-seekers. Winter holidays were born
there, according to lore, in 1864, when Jo-
hannes Badrutt made a wager with English
tourists spending summer in his hotel:
come back at Christmas and see the valley
bathed in winter sunshine; if you are dis-
satisfied, I will refund your expenses. Re-
turn they did, soon followed by Europe’s
high society. With the English came the
love of games and competitions, startingwith ice-skating and sledding. Skiing was
imported from Norway. Arthur Conan
Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes de-
tective novels, was among the early enthu-
siasts in Davos, though he thought skis
“the most capricious things on Earth”.
Skiing involved hours of hard climb on
foot or skis for just a few minutes of down-
hill thrill. Its popularisation would have to
await the introduction of mechanical as-
cent as well as the post-war economic
boom. By then antibiotics had relieved the
sanatoria of their tubercular residents, al-
lowing them to become hotels. Under its
“Snow Plan” of 1964, France created a net-
work of high, purpose-built resorts to draw
foreign tourists and prevent the depopula-
tion of Alpine valleys. Brought by Norwe-
gians, skiing caught on in North America,
too. Both the Vail and Aspen resorts in Col-
orado, born as mining towns, were turned
into ski resorts by veterans of the 10th
Mountain Division who had trained in
Colorado before serving in Europe.
This expansion took place in decades of
abundant snow. Mountains can still get
large dumps, as delegates at the World Eco-
nomic Forum in Davos this year found out.
But the long-term trends are sobering.
Christoph Marty of the Institute for Snow
and Avalanche Research in Davos notes
that the snow comes later and melts earlier,
and the snowpack is thinning (see chart 2).
By the end of the century there will be little
snow in the Alps below 1,200 metres, and
much less of it even below 1,800 metres.
In 2007 the OECD, a rich-world think-
tank, sounded the alarm. It projected that,
of 666 Alpine ski resorts, roughly 40%
would no longer get enough snow to oper-
ate a 100-day season (a rule of thumb for
making money) if the region warmed by
another 2°C. Roughly 70% might go if it
warmed by 4°C. The German Alps were es-
pecially vulnerable. In North America,
projectionssuggest thatresorts close to the
western seaboard, especially in California,
face a ruinous loss of skiing days. Skiing in
Australia looks all but doomed.
Seeking colder, more snow-sure places,
developers in Canada have won authori-
sation to build a new resort in Valemount,in the Rockies west of Edmonton, avoiding
the lawsuits by environmentalists and
first-nation groups that have hampered
similar projects elsewhere. Meanwhile,
some American resorts are trying to coax
more snow out of the clouds by seeding
them with plumes of silver iodide.
The main response of resorts has been
to invest heavily in artificial snow-making.
Messrs Scott and Steiger have reworked cli-
mate-model assessments to take this into
account. One looks at roughly 300 resorts
in the vulnerable eastern Alps(parts of
Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy).
Relying just on natural snow, about 70% of
them would no longer survive with 2°C
more warming, and 90% would be endan-
gered with 4°C. But with snow-making
these proportions fell to about15% and 60%
respectively (see map, nextpage).Blow hard
First adopted by some American resorts in
the 1950s, snow-making has evolved from
patching bald ski runs to guaranteeing and
extending the season, especially around
Christmas. Even high stations such as St
Moritz (alt. 1,800 metres) start by creating a
base layer of artificial snow. In fact, opera-
tors often prefer it to the natural stuff as it is
harder-wearing, and more resistant to
melting. Athletes think it more reliable, too.
The French resort of Les Deux Alpes has
even started spraying snow on its glacier
(above 3,000 metres) to preserve it. The
machine-made stuff is called “pro-
grammed snow” in Italian, “technical
snow” in German and “snow from cul-
ture” in French. Just don’t call it “artificial”.
Off-piste skiers cannot do without nat-
ural powder. But the mass of enthusiasts
on machine-groomed runs seem indiffer-
ent to whether they are sliding on cloud- or
man-made snow. Increasingly, what the
heavens provide isa bonus, helping to
create the winter ambience. “People do not
care about the snow, they care about the
sun,” says Paolo Cappadozzi, vice-presi-
dent of Dolomiti Superski, a vast domain
that includesthe Marmolada.
Resorts in the Dolomites invested
heavily in snow-making after two disas-The Olympic scorch^1Source: D. Scott,
R. Steiger & Y. Fang*Low-emissions scenario
†High-emissions scenarioClimate reliability of Winter Olympics host cities
Reliable Risky Not reliable
2050s 2100s
Host city (Year) LE* HE† LE* HE†
Beijing (2022)
Pyeongchang (2018)
Sochi (2014)
Vancouver (2010)
Torino (2006)
Salt Lake City (2002)
Nagano (1998)
Lillehammer (1994)
Albertville (1992)
Calgary (1988)
Sarajevo (1984)
Lake Placid (1980, 1932)
Innsbruck (1976, 1964)
Sapporo (1972)
Grenoble (1968)
Squaw Valley (1960)
Cortina d’Ampezzo (1956)
Oslo (1952)
St Moritz (1948, 1928)
Garmisch-Partenkirchen (1936)
Chamonix (1924)No more magic mountain^2Source: WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research SLF *November-MarchDavos, Switzerland
Winter temperature, °C Snow depth, cm864201865 1900 25 50 75 2000 16Five-month average*Ten-year moving average
0204060801001931 40 50 60 70 80 90 2000 10 17Average depthTen-year moving
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