Artificially snowing ski slopes requires a lot of water and electricity. Is that still relevant in the energy crisis? Yes, say lift operators in Saxony and are preparing for the coming season. For skiers, however, leisure time fun in the snow will be more expensive.
Oberwiesenthal/Altenberg/Schoeneck (dpa/sn) – Despite drastically increased energy prices, skiers in Saxony should get their money’s worth this winter. Not only on the Fichtelberg, as soon as the temperatures allow, snow cannons and snow lances will go into operation to prepare the slopes. “We will snow all ski slopes,” assured the head of the Fichtelberg suspension railway, René Lötzsch. However, there could be deductions depending on the snow depth. The start in Saxony’s largest alpine ski area is planned for mid-December.
In order to save energy, however, there will be no artificial ice rink in Oberwiesenthal this year. Otherwise, Lötzsch sees little potential for savings: “We can’t let the drag lifts go any slower and we don’t have heated seats,” he explains. “But there will be one or two fewer night skiing days.”
The biggest energy guzzler for the operation of the ski area is the snowmaking system. Around 650,000 kilowatt hours of electricity would be needed for this per season. And the energy costs have now doubled. Lötzsch and his team are therefore hoping that it will snow heavily this winter so that they don’t have to start the snow cannons as often. However, doing without is not an option, because the ski area is enormously important for tourism in the region.
Some of the higher costs will be passed on to the skiers: the price for the day pass on the Fichtelberg has been raised from 35 to 39 euros. Skiers who also want to use the slopes of Klínovec on the Czech side pay 73 euros for a 1.5-day pass for the Interski region, and 223 euros for a whole week.
In Altenberg in the Eastern Ore Mountains, too, the winter sports season is firmly in sight. “We have two main runs and we will also make snow on them,” said operations manager Manuel Püschel. He also hopes to start the season in mid-December. Snow cannons are big energy guzzlers for the operation of a ski area, he admitted. In recent years, however, there has been constant investment in Altenberg to save energy: for example in snow lances for snowmaking, which use less energy, and in the conversion of the floodlights.
Skiers in Altenberg also have to pay a little more for the day ticket: the price increases by 2 to 20 euros. The situation is similar in Schöneck in Vogtland. There, the price of the day pass for adults increases from 23 to 25 euros, as Jennifer Braun explained for the local ski world. Savings are made in Schöneck with night skiing, which is only to be offered once instead of twice a week. Much more is not possible for a ski area with this amount of savings, if you still want to remain attractive for winter sports enthusiasts and tourists, emphasized Braun: “We can’t do without artificial snow.”
It remains unclear how the enormous price increases in many areas of life will affect people’s desire for winter sports. Do you perhaps forgo the short vacation or day trip to the Ore Mountains or Vogtland? That is currently difficult to assess, stated Braun. Püschel is confident. The past few years have shown that, despite the difficult Corona period, people would have demanded a lot of leisure activities if this was possible. He is therefore certain that many families will be looking for leisure time fun in the snow again this winter.
In the past two seasons, restrictions due to the corona pandemic had hit Saxony’s ski areas badly. If they had to write off the 2020/21 season completely, they were allowed to open the slopes belatedly in 2021/22, albeit initially only for skiers with proof of vaccination or recovery. According to Lötzsch, only around 139,000 skiers were counted on the Fichtelberg instead of the 270,000 usual in a normal season. In addition to the important time between Christmas and New Year, when the ski area was closed, a few winter storms had spoiled the joy of skiing. According to the information, no corona restrictions are planned this year.
