The once year-round ski area of Tignes in France is considering putting a roof on one of its ski slopes to make an indoor slope some 400m long at a location 2000m up in the Alps.
Tignes’ Mayor, Jean-Christophe Vitale, believes that in the “near future” the resort’s Grande Motte glacier will no longer be able to offer summer skiing because of global warming.
The project is reported to be “just in the planning stage” but it does have a name: “Ski Line”, a price-tag: €62m and a probable location on Tignes’ slalom piste at Val Claret. The centre would also feature other attractions including an indoor surf wave.
Work on it could start in 2018 if all permissions are granted, but that may be problematic as the plans have not gone down well with environmental groups, who have pointed to both environmental damage and what they perceive as the business sense of building such a facility so far from population centres.
Tignes say their plans are for a self-sustaining, environment-friendly building, which may be possible as some urban snow slopes line their roofs with solar panels to generate the power they need.
Tignes formerly offered skiing 365 days a year thanks to its glacier but is now open for snowsports around nine months of the year; however, it still has France’s longest ski season.
It is not the first ski resort to propose putting a roof on a ski run for year-round skiing; a similar plan was put forward by another resort around 15 years ago, but didn’t happen.
France is home to one existing indoor snow centre at Amnéville in the north of the country. It is the longest indoor snow slope in the world at over 600m in length but has reported financial difficulties in recent years.
