00:00In 50 years, winter sports have transformed the mountains, bringing prosperity to local
00:22communities.
00:24There were crowds of people. Look, it was extraordinary.
00:30But the French Alps are heating up, and twice as fast as the rest of the planet.
00:35At low and medium altitudes, a lack of snow has left no illusions.
00:40We know very well it's going to end someday.
00:43Without their white coat, what future do smaller resorts really have?
00:57Between the Southern Alps and Provence, Le Grand Prix is turning into a ghost resort.
01:03There are no hire shops, no more ski school, and the lifts are out of action.
01:10Here, the chapter on snow sports is drawing to a close.
01:18We're basically selling off everything that we needed to function as a ski resort.
01:22It's all going, the chairlifts, the button lifts, the piste bashers, and all the snow-making equipment.
01:31Since the 1970s, the Alps have lost a month's quantity of snow at low and medium altitude.
01:38Snow cannons, expensive to run, and only effective in low temperatures, are no longer enough to compensate.
01:46Here, skiing has become a financial black hole.
01:56Long ago, it was a machine for making money, at least for Le Grand Prix.
02:00But it hasn't brought in any money for the town for a long time now.
02:04In 2008, there was already a deficit of 80,000 euros, and for 2024, we're at 412,000 euros.
02:11That's about 15% of the budget the town needs to function. It's huge.
02:18The patatines are a bit like raclette, but slightly different.
02:21There's potato, melted cheese, and charcuterie.
02:25In France, 120,000 jobs are relying on the ski sector.
02:30This restaurant has been in the family for three generations, and is the resort's last remaining business.
02:36Closing the ski area is a major threat.
02:41It was heartbreaking, but it was never a question of closing.
02:44On the contrary, we had two solutions.
02:46Throw up our hands, or roll up our sleeves.
02:49And we chose to roll up our sleeves.
02:51We made renovations in the autumn, as they were passing sentence and saying,
02:55we're going to close the resort. We said, OK, close it, we'll bounce back.
03:01The aim now? Drawing in skiers from other nearby resorts at the end of their day's skiing.
03:08Throughout the February holidays, we've got something on every evening.
03:11On Mondays, it's the paper lantern hike.
03:13That's hiking around in nature in groups, finding yourself, well,
03:16like being lost really at night in the middle of the mountains.
03:20Since Covid, increasing numbers of holidaymakers have sought the peace of nature.
03:26And the sheer cost of a ski holiday is putting off others.
03:34A week's skiing vacation when you're a family of four, five or six people is expensive.
03:38So you see a lot of people who just come for some fresh air,
03:41to collect mushrooms or to take a hike,
03:44to take advantage of nature which is right there, beautiful and accessible.
03:49It's in your hands.
03:54In winter tourism, France sits at second place internationally, behind the United States.
04:00But it now faces a global threat.
04:02Adapting in the face of climate change.
04:09150 kilometres to the north, not far from Grenoble,
04:12Le Grand Serre was meant to have shut down too.
04:19I'm happy Le Grand Serre didn't close.
04:23Really, if the resort closed, I'd be sad because then we'd have to move house.
04:28Le Grand Serre would be nothing.
04:30It wouldn't even be a village without the resort.
04:35Thanks to civic action, Le Grand Serre gained a reprieve.
04:40Residents pooled their resources in an online pot
04:43and collected nearly 100,000 euros in two weeks.
04:50Enough to give the resort's bean counters some breathing space.
04:56It's the first time such a large resort would have had to close
04:59because of global warming and a lack of investment.
05:02So it made a lot of noise.
05:04It was on CNN, The Guardian in Australia and so on.
05:07A lot of people rallied and it was really successful.
05:10Between the press, local and social networks,
05:12we managed to get 97,000 euros of donations from over 800 people.
05:17Le Grand Serre has now become a symbol of the struggle small resorts face
05:21and a case study of what might await the future of mountain communities.
05:27We're the largest of the small resorts and the smallest of the large ones,
05:30so we occupy this pivotal point.
05:32A lot of people are watching us because what happens here
05:35could either be a model for success because we've managed to turn a corner
05:38or it could be the other way around
05:40and it will mean that the future will be complicated.
05:44Opening a spa, building a mountain shelter,
05:47even putting on a bicycle festival.
05:50Le Grand Serre is reinventing itself to survive
05:53and is on the hunt for an investor.
05:58Elected officials decided in the autumn
06:01that we couldn't keep taking the insurance risk on our own
06:04because we'd be putting the town in danger.
06:07So we're looking at how to transfer to an outside partner
06:11for the operation and investment in the ski area
06:14so they would handle the risk.
06:20At the heart of the Chartres mountains,
06:23residents in the small resort of Planolet
06:26have also seen the writing on the wall.
06:33On duty this morning is Bruno Cottave.
06:40I'm on the Coucheron ski lift.
06:46After an entire career running the ski lift,
06:49retiree Bruno is back on the job without pay,
06:52as a volunteer.
06:54I made my living off it my whole life.
06:57I thought I should give back a little bit.
07:00As for motivation, well, I learned to ski here,
07:03my children learned to ski here and I have a new granddaughter.
07:06I'd like her to learn to ski here too.
07:11Like Bruno,
07:14around 50 volunteers are running Planolet's ski lifts.
07:19Coming here, getting the little ones on the lift,
07:22it's a real pleasure.
07:28Reducing costs through the volunteers
07:31is the only way the resort can keep going.
07:34With only seven pistes, it's not a large ski area.
07:38Without any new investment,
07:41keeping the five 1970s-era button lifts running is paramount.
07:46The idea of the association was to keep skiing going,
07:49but without costing the town money,
07:52until it all comes to an end.
07:55We're not fooling ourselves, we know it's going to end someday.
08:00It's taken a long time for acceptance to set in.
08:04Just ten years ago, new infrastructure was still going up,
08:07like this chairlift built at a cost of two million euros,
08:10and now abandoned.
08:14I think there was still a part of the population
08:17and people at the top level
08:20who still believed that skiing was going to go on forever.
08:23That good year or bad year,
08:26the Chartreuse Range got enough of the right weather
08:29and there'd always be some snow.
08:33These are the skis we had when I was little.
08:36Can you see?
08:39We had leather boots like this.
08:42They had grooves here, like that, and you put that there,
08:45and then you twisted here and closed it,
08:48and it held the boot in place.
08:51Joelle Claret owns Planolet's only ski hire shop.
08:54Her parents opened it for business the year of her birth,
08:57and its history is that of snowsports itself.
09:00It pulled my parents out of the rural exodus.
09:03They were meant to go and work in the city,
09:06and the mayor said,
09:09Oh, no, we can't let all these people go like this.
09:12We need to develop the winter sports side of things.
09:15And it all started in 1960.
09:18My parents took a little van, they hired out four pairs of skis,
09:21and in 1964, my grandfather gave them some land,
09:24and they built the chalet.
09:28There were nearly 30 buses that would park all along the road,
09:31and then the people would come into Planolet.
09:34There were crowds of people, look.
09:37Look at all the people who came, it was extraordinary.
09:43You can see the snowblowers.
09:46There was so much snow that the snowplows couldn't get through,
09:49so the snowblowers would come and they'd get rid of the snow.
09:52There aren't any snowblowers today.
09:56It was great. You've never seen that, have you?
10:04Joëlle has already mourned the end of the golden age of winter sports.
10:09I took over my parents' shop, but my children won't take over from me.
10:14There'll be no snow in the future, we know that very well.
10:17We see something else in our future.
10:20And it's true that skiing is something wonderful.
10:24We're nostalgic, but when you think about the history of the planet,
10:27this period of skiing is very short.
10:30It hasn't even lasted 100 years.
10:37On the other side of the mountain,
10:39two locals have just taken over the running of four lifts.
10:46La Stasse offers a more extreme winter experience.
10:50It's super. It's like you're flying. Time stops. It's great.
10:57But they want to cut dependence on snow
10:59and are turning to a different season altogether.
11:02The Mickey button lift will let us have a summer version of this big airbag.
11:07They can set off with bikes, with mountain boards, with skates, whatever they want.
11:15On the side, there'll be another structure for jumping.
11:18With the button lift, you can come down with roller skis,
11:20with caterpillar skis, all-terrain scooters.
11:23There'll be ziplines, trampolines, games of skill.
11:26It'll really be a fun park.
11:29For now, summer activities account for a minimal part of ski resort's turnover.
11:35But that might change as tourists seek to escape
11:37the inevitable heat waves of global warming.
11:41In Austria, the birthplace of Alpine skiing,
11:44summer's become more profitable than winter.
11:47As the mountains lose their white blanket,
11:49one's thoughts for hope are the new opportunities revealed beneath.
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