What happens to ski resorts after they close?

Two months before the opening of the season, the decision is “brutal” for Lauranne Vincent, interviewed by France 3. This owner of a sports store in Alpe du Grand Serre, in Isère, is both “ dejected and in shock. On October 4, the community of municipalities announced the permanent closure of this Isère station, located at an altitude of 1,368 meters.

Two days later, in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence, it was the inhabitants of Seyne-les-Alpes who voted 71% for the permanent closure of the Grand Puy ski lifts. “But we are not stopping tourist activity, we are changing the paradigm and moving towards an economy of nature and sport,” said the mayor, Laurent Pascal, on local television.

“Even though it may be impressive, it doesn’t mean ‘the end of skiing’. The end of an activity is completely “classic” more than two hundred years after the arrival of mountain tourism,” warns at the outset the geographer Pierre-Alexandre Metral, emphasizing that it is not resorts like Alpe d’Huez which are stopping their rises.

Since the 1970s, more than 180 ski areas have closed in France, the vast majority of them unprofitable family micro-resorts located in mid-mountains, according to the count of this doctoral student at the University of Grenoble. But then, what has become of them since then?

Abandoned ski areas or return to natural state

Pierre-Alexandre Metral, specialist in reconversion strategies for abandoned stations, emphasizes the fact that “most of the sites which have closed are very small structures”. In some cases, “everything is left in place”. “We are on a trajectory of abandonment,” says the geographer. Often, it happens because there is no recovery project. This state may be temporary, before finding funding to carry out the dismantling. » He cites the example of Vauplane Soleihas, in Verdon, which closed in 2019 and whose four ski lifts are still in place as well as the reception building which distributed the passes.

Another trajectory is the “return to the natural state”. “As if skiing had only been a parenthesis,” summarizes Pierre-Alexandre Metral. In these cases, a complete dismantling of all structures was carried out so that the sites resumed “their pre-tourist function”, such as “being mountain pastures, forests, pastures”, lists the specialist, giving the Col du Rooster in Isère. “This is the most commonly encountered trajectory for small sites,” he observes. Especially for those where there was no reason to want to retrain. »

The reopening or rehabilitation of stations

However, the possibilities for reconverting stations are multiple, according to the observations of Pierre-Alexandre Metral, carried out as part of his thesis, “The disarmed mountain: an analysis of the territorial trajectories of abandoned stations”. He listed them into four categories.

First, the reopenings of the station, but under a different model. “Part of the ski lifts may be removed and/or the form of management may change and move to associative, for example,” he explains. This is what happened in Gascheney, in the Vosges.

Then, there can be a “rehabilitation” of the spaces with the “residentialization” of the station to become “a small hamlet”. The geographer then cites Saint-Honoré 1,500, in Isère, where around fifty people have reinvested in tourist buildings to settle there all year round. “The resort has become a small mountain village, lost in the middle of nowhere. The new residents benefited from an attractive purchase price and now enjoy all the attractions of nature nearby,” he emphasizes.

Transformations and reappropriation of stations

Another reconversion option: transformations into a leisure center. Bob sledding, mini golf, mountain biking, Nordic walking or trail running… A range of activities, usually in summer, are then offered by service providers. This is what happened to the Orange-Montisel resort, in Haute-Savoie, which stopped skiing in 2013 but which maintained its leisure activity.

Finally, visitors can reclaim the place. “There is a group of sites where there is no longer any skiing, no activities offered. But these places are always “used” by visitors for personal practices, he explains. These people take advantage of the low attendance and direct access to the mountain to settle there. We see people mountain biking, hiking, paragliding but without it being ‘supervised’. And there can also be the organization of rave party. » He then cites the example of Val Pelouse, in Savoie.

Organize this après-ski transition

For Pierre-Alexandre Metral, there is no “viable” or “proven” model for it to be transposed to all sites stopping their skiing activity. “But we see from all these examples that we are far from a “ghost station” where everything is abandoned. There can be life,” he points out. Like the Col de l’Arzelier, in the Vercors, where a hotel, six residences and 80 individual chalets were suddenly abandoned. The pylons of the six ski lifts have been as they are since they closed in 2008, reports Reporterre.fr. But the Alpine resort has plans. The former ski rental store will be transformed into a vegan pasta shop, and an electric mountain bike rental business will soon open.

According to the specialist in retraining trajectories, what is ultimately necessary is to “organize the transition”. Rather than waiting for the announcement of a resort closure, try to anticipate “giving up skiing” to prevent regions from experiencing vulnerable situations. “It is necessary to accept that, in certain cases, skiing will no longer be viable in the future and that we must use these years ahead of us to outline the mountain of tomorrow and the reconversions which will make the landscape of the resort of the future », he concludes.