the seduction of the ghost resort

The restaurant door was unlocked, so I pulled it open and went inside. As soon as this was the compressed center of the Super St-Bernard-adhered ski resort with the car park, the starting of the cable car and a wide terrace for alfresco lunches and the apprès-Ski drinks. Now, it was a desolation scene. My ski boots printed in broken glass; Brochures, old magazines and elevators, stagnant the floor; There were inscriptions on the walls and fuel residues of a fire in the kitchen. The wind rocked some double -glazed pieces of window frames.

Super St-Bernard, about 22 km south of Verbier, opened in 1963 and became known for its high, long slopes, including what fell over the border in Italy. But by the end of the century he was fighting financially, leaving from one season to another, and in 2010 the elevators finally the land in stop. Abandoned since that time-building is slowly rotting, the elevator towers changing in blizzards-has become one of the growing number of so-called “ghost resorts”. Some are victims of climate change, others of the simple economy, usually able to afford to replace the elevators who have reached the end of their natural life.

No exact global figures exist, but only in Switzerland only 20 resorts have been closed in the last 25 years, according to the Laurent Vanat ski industry adviser. In Japan, at least 200 resorts have been closed since the 1980s ski boom. Most of the infrastructure has been dismantled or buried, but some of the resorts have remained as if the staff was simply gone out.

In the Super St-Bernard, the strange thing, given the debris around me and a breeze that was getting up to 60 km/h, was that I was not alone. Beyond the destroyed windows, I can see the brilliant dressed people coming out of their cars and were preparing to go skiing. An increase in the popularity of ski shifts-using ski-attached skins, so users can walk uphill rather than rely on elevators-is increasing the prospect of a kind of life for these abandoned resorts.

I was here to participate in a public event organized by the French brand of ski Black Crows, joining about 25 others for a tour of the mountain guide and some of its sponsored skiers, including French mountaineer Liv Sansoz. We gathered for a conference in the chopped restaurant, (“Look Frostbite in this wind,” Sansoz warned), fasten our skins under the cable machine machinery, then slowly headed to the hill.

Super St-Bernard lands at 1,900 meters, near the top of the Entremont valley and Col Du Grand-St-Bernard, a major crossing in Italy. There were three elevators – the longest running up to 2,770 meters at the expense dividing both places – but without hotels. Last night we would stand 6 km down the road in Bivouac Napoléon, a hotel in the village of Bourg-St-Pierre. Before a fund, we would watch a short film produced by Black Crows for Super St-Bernard, the latest in a series that has made about resorts Ghost all over the world.

Enough of why a new, living brand would like to connect with the stories of skiing history, decay infrastructure and financial destruction, is not immediately clear. Partly the idea is simply to reach people who would not watch conventional skiing films. “But even for us skiing is not just about practicing a sport, it’s a culture,” says Camille Jaccoux, the brand co -founder. “And a large part of that culture is the ski boom in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.”

With snow becoming more unsafe in the lower resorts, and the highest resorts become more crowded and costly, a sense of wisdom, the desire for a more optimistic past, it is increasingly dependent on sports. After the film, one participant became exciting as he talked about his memories of increasing the Super St-Bernard skiing, a “a playground” that usually takes 14 meters of snow every winter.

Later the owner of the hotel, Claude Lattion, showed me an old black -and -white photograph of smuggling smuggling cigarettes while crossing Switzerland to Italy, and for whom the elevator was a help. He told about a young woman with dark hair resting on the snow near the cigarette boxes in HESSIAN bags: “My mother -in -law”.

In 2002, the village, which until then owned and directed the resort, decided to close. At a Council meeting he argued against the closure. “The mayor said: ‘Well, the only solution is if we sell you for a franc.’ I had 30 seconds to make the decision – I have to be crazy.”

Lastion tried for another eight years. “I found partners, put money out of my pocket, a great time. It was an excellent experience, very enriched from a human perspective. . . financially, not at all. “By 2010, an investment SFR25MN was needed to update elevators, a large sum unable to collect.

Return to the mountain Era continued to explode our group and the fog was shaken around the valley. Topography of the peaks around the funnels storms towards these slopes, guaranteeing good snow until late in the spring, but also raising the possibility of high winds and lifting closures (“It was our number one enemy,” Lation told me).

The heavy wind and exercise make the conversation difficult-on the contrary I withdrew to attract Super St-Bernard and others like it. If modern skiing means staying in line in a resort owned by a wide corporation, or line up in a kuloir while those forward adjust their selfie sticks, then a journey to a ghost resort can offer a joyous alternative, perhaps even a kind of rebellion.

We continued, making it at the top of one of the elevators and seeking shelter in the large stone, where guides finally make the call to withdraw. Then we broke back into an impossible color coloring, enjoying wild snow and a noise of nostalgia.

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