Snowshoe hikers, ski tourers, tobogganists – last winter all kinds of winter sports enthusiasts romped about on the slopes of the cable car operators, says Peter Lorenz. Only the cable cars themselves should have stood still in the corona lockdown. That shouldn’t happen this winter, but since Tuesday it has been clear: In Bavaria’s cable cars and lifts, only 2G is no longer valid, which the operators had already prepared for. Instead, all the vaccinated and recovered skiers also have to present a negative corona test if they want to get into a gondola or have the lift take them to the top. In addition, the railways are allowed to carry no more than a quarter of the masses of people they could transport. Association officials like Peter Lorenz from the mountain railways on Spitzingsee, Wallberg and Brauneck or Matthias Stauch from the Bavarian Zugspitzbahn consider this to be a “lockdown through the back door”.
The lockdown is already blocking the main entrance for some areas. In the Alpine region, on Thursday, the districts of Berchtesgadener Land, Traunstein, Rosenheim and Ostallgäu had a seven-day incidence of over 1,000; in the Bavarian Forest, the districts of Regen and Freyung-Grafenau, among others, also have ski areas. The operation of cable cars is completely prohibited in such hotspot regions. There isn’t enough snow there at the moment anyway, but next week it should be colder, so that, according to Lorenz, the snow cannons could run in many places. Lorenz’s role in the annual season forecast of the Association of German Cable Cars is usually to list all the millions of investments that have been made here and there in order to then name the foreseeable start dates for the lifts.
But Lorenz cannot help with that on Thursday, because it is currently not possible to say which railway will go into operation this winter and under these conditions. After all, the lifts have been running on Germany’s highest mountain for a week; Zugspitzbahn boss Stauch also heads the cable car association. His employees had to send home many guests on Wednesday who had been vaccinated or recovered, but could not prove a test. According to Stauch, 2G, as a prerequisite for skiing pleasure, could have motivated many hesitants and skeptics to get vaccinated after all. That was “confirmed by many guests”. Demanding a test now will put many off again.
Otherwise Stauch shows little understanding of the new rules. He expected that smaller cable cars in particular, which had just survived the lockdown last winter thanks to state aid, could finally cost their existence. Perhaps 2G Plus should even have the effect of a lockdown without the state having to pay out any more money for it, speculates Stauch and demands an “honest dialogue” in unison with the President of the Bavarian Hotel and Restaurant Association, Angela Inselkammer. The politicians have “learned nothing from the damage suffered,” also criticizes the association’s vice-president Lorenz. But he will take the risk and have snow covered. This time it won’t help the tourers and tobogganists much, because the artificial snow remains in large piles for the time being. Slopes have not yet been prepared.