A visit to the snow depots

As early as June, i.e. immediately after the end of the ski season, almost 100,000 cubic metres of snow were stored in two summer snow depots. "We pushed the snow together on two differently sized areas with snow groomers and piled it up in a trapezoidal shape, each about six to ten metres high," explains Peter Bühler, Head of Winter Sports at Schilthorn cableway AG. Then, in painstaking manual work, the tops of the two depots were covered with perimeter insulation boards made of hard foam, covered with foam mats and these were fixed with seam sealing tape. Finally, the entire depots were covered with white glacier fleece sheets and the fleece ends were buried in the ground at the sides for better fixation.

So now, about four months later, the depots are covered, all the snow underneath is pushed away and made into a ski slope. "Despite a hotter-than-average summer, the total amount has only decreased by about 15 per cent. So there is more than enough snow to start the winter season as early as the beginning of November," explains Bühler. But time is pressing. "With four to six men, we've been at work for three weeks now, in a month we have to be finished with the slope," he says - saying goodbye and going back to the "construction site".

The early start to the season will be particularly important for regional ski teams, as training opportunities are becoming fewer and fewer every year due to the partial closure of glacier areas. A snow park is already being built before it is moved to its intended location in the Maulerhubel and Winteregg area in December.