Switzerland
Mild weather leads to cracks in steep ski slopes
A crack in a ski slope at the Glacier 3000 ski resort in Switzerland. photo
© -/Glacier 3000/dpa
One of the steepest ski slopes in Switzerland is closed due to a crack. It’s supposed to be due to the mild temperatures. Even the chief of investigations has never seen anything like this.
One of the steepest ski slopes in the Switzerland has been closed due to a sudden rift. The reason was the mild temperatures, confirmed the head of the Glacier 3000 ski area in the canton of Vaud, Bernhard Tschannen. The ski resort quoted the trail manager as saying that he had never seen anything like this in 30 years of professional experience.
The slope has been closed since Tuesday. They said they were looking forward to the return of winter and further snowfall so that they could reopen.
The crack looks like a crevasse. In fact, only the layer of snow on the warm and slippery ground has become unstable. This is due to the recent increase in temperature and rainfall. The ground probably didn’t cool down enough before the snowfall in November, experts said. Therefore, wet layers of snow easily slipped.
The Black Wall piste is located in the Les Diablerets ski area east of Lake Geneva. It partly has a gradient of 46 degrees. The run is three kilometers long and uses a 265 meter long tunnel to connect the highest point of the ski area at 3000 meters with the Col du Pillon summit at 1546 meters.