Switzerland Today

Greetings from Zurich!

As Swiss ski resorts await the arrival of steady snowfall this season, the question arises of how to dispose of the rusting skeletons of defunct infrastructure. Apparently, it’s no easy task.

But first, the news of the day.

© Keystone / Martial Trezzini

In the news: the release of serial prisoner Brian, currency manipulation and protest restrictions.

• Swiss prisoner Brian, whose controversial case attracted the attention of the UN special rapporteur on torture, will be set free later this week.
• The largest internally flawless fancy vivid blue diamond ever put up for auctionhas sold for $43.8 million in Geneva.
• Switzerland has been removed from a United States list of countries to be monitored for currency manipulation.
• Bern has banned large scale demonstrations from the city centre until after Christmas.

Christian Beutler, Keystone

Rotting remains of ski lifts

The Swiss countryside is littered with the rusting remains of defunct chairlifts, T-bar lifts and cable cars. Extracting and disposing of this infrastructure is causing an expensive headache.

The skeletal remains of 65 ski lifts are currently a blight on the landscape, according to the NGO Mountain Wilderness.

This infrastructure is usually mothballed for economic reasons – made worse by decreasing snowfall that renders some ski resorts unprofitable.

Most sites are located at less than 1,500 metres above sea level in cantons of Vaud, Graubünden, Bern, Valais and Neuchâtel.

“We need to think about a national dismantling strategy,” before the problem gets any worse, says Luisa Deubzer, project manager at Mountain Wilderness.

Theoretically, ski lifts should be dismantled within five years of ceasing to operate. But this is a difficult operation that costs money, meaning some infrastructure has remained standing, but idle, for far longer.

Some communities are desperate to resurrect their old ski lifts – partly to revive traditions and partly because local businesses also feel the cost of them standing idle.

But of course, this would come at a cost. One association, determined to breathe new life back into old ski infrastructure, must raise between CHF6 million and CHF10 million to achieve their goal.