An the Crap Sogn Gion, the snow makes you believe that you can rely on nature. Skiers and snowboarders adjust their goggles, a few Englishmen do squats with soldierly zeal and get their bodies ready for the descent. Children throw snowballs at each other. It’s one of those perfect winter days, at least apparently. Because if you look down into the valley, the illusion of the intact Graubünden mountains evaporates. At this time of the year, the meadows, rocks and mountain slopes should actually be covered in snow, a winter world in white. But the valley descent to Laax is not a gift from heaven, but a product of artificial snow. The further down you go on the slopes, the greener the surroundings become, a picture that has often been seen in Germany, Austria and Switzerland this winter. Martin Garbely, the master of the water and thus also of the snowmaking systems, says: “I have never experienced such a low-rainfall winter.” Garbely is 47, and because this age is not particularly high, he has the older semesters from the Flims Laax region in demand. But they too shook their heads. Yes, this winter is extreme.
With the bikini in the snow
Today, photos are reminiscent of what it used to be like in Laax, for example in 1978, when the Vorab Glacier became a summer ski area and women in bikinis lay in the sun as if they were enjoying a beach holiday. But at the end of the 1990s, the last summer snowboard kicker camp took place, and you had to say goodbye to summer fun in the snow. At that time, one or the other might already have guessed that a lot of snow would no longer be a matter of course in the future.
Climate change is hitting Switzerland particularly hard. Since measurements began in 1864, the mean annual temperature has risen by two degrees, twice as much as the global average. In Laax, people know how much is at stake and that there is no future for tourism without clever sustainability concepts that also pay off economically. That is why the Flims Laax Falera region wants to become climate-neutral by 2030.
Garbely sits in his small, well-heated office at the Crap Sogn Gion mountain station at an altitude of 2,200 meters. The view goes up towards Crap Masegn and down into the valley. In the meantime, the English have finished their warm-up program and glide smoothly away on their carving skis. There are two screens in front of Garbely. A few clicks and a window opens showing a kind of map with around 500 drops. Each drop symbolizes a shaft, and these shafts mean: a machine for producing artificial snow can be set up here. “We have about forty kilometers of snow lines in the ground, about 220 snow cannons and 200 snow lances,” says Garbely. He can activate any device with the push of a button.