Ski resorts in Spain are fighting for snow

Ski resorts in Spain are fighting for snow

Heavy snowfalls, which literally flooded half of Europe in early January would have been now like manna from heaven for some ski resorts in Spain. Because of the unusually warm weather many ski holiday centers in Madrid forced to close most tracks or open only a small number of them.

Ski resorts located near the capital of Spain were hit by the warm weather most of all. Thus, the Valdeski ski resort, which history starts 40 years ago, was unable to fully open this winter. In addition to Valdeski in total 32 ski resorts in Spain were forced to close last week.

Those resorts that decided to continue work were forced to use artificial snow-making systems, which are available only on a small number of tracks. So, located just a few dozen kilometers from Valdeski the resort of Puerto de Navacerrada used for snow making all available snow-making guns.

Either way, the artificial snow is unlikely to increase the revenue of ski resorts. So, for example, the ski resort of La Pinilla, located near the town of Segovia, spent almost 65% of their profits on snowmaking. La Pinilla is one of the few resorts on the outskirts of Madrid, which was able to open on Friday after a long delay.

The lack of snow also affected the job offers. Valdeski, which annually employs about 120 people, this season decided to set the limit of nine employees to maintain the year-round resort.

We can already say that 2011-2012 ski season will go down into the history of Spain as one of the most unfortunate in terms of climate. According to the forecasters, December 2011 was for some regions of Spain the driest month for the last 23 years. The average level of snow cover in the region was about 2.5 cm. Against this background located near the northern borders of Spain Andorra with its 50 cm of snow on the slopes is the realm of the Snow Queen.

Due to the absence of snow ski resorts are forced to change offers and propose unusual for winter, although popular, activities such as mountain bike trails or rock climbing.

Ilya Kalachev

Date: 22/01/2012