Climate Change Forces Permanent Closure of Austrian Ski Area

Schigebiet Unterberg, a small Austrian ski area, is permanently closing as part of a broader climate-driven trend that’s forced European resorts to tangle with increasingly mild winters, particularly at lower altitudes. 

“After taking over and saving the ski area in 2014, and years of commitment to regional winter sports, the continuing mild winters and the noticeable climate change are now forcing us to permanently stop the lift operation,” Erich Panzenböck, Klaus Panzenböck, and the Unterberg team wrote in a message on the ski area’s website that’s been translated from German.

“We would like to thank from the bottom of our heart our loyal regulars, the partners in the Pernitz-Muggendorf region and our great team, who fought until the end for every snowflake, for every day of skiing,” the message continued, adding that a concept for Unterberg being used as an area for ski tourers and snow showers is in the works, with more details to come.

Last year and the year before, the four-lift ski area located in the mountains a few hours outside Vienna hasn’t opened for skiing and snowboarding once, local news outlets reported, due to the lack of snow.

Below the ski area’s post announcing the closure, comments flooded in, mourning Schigebiet Unterberg.

“Very, very sad!” read one. “But you have held out for a long time…”

The closure follows a record hot European summer that brought wildfires and forced glacier ski areas like Zermatt and Saas-Fee to temporarily suspend off-season ski operations. 

Beyond one particularly hot summer, the potential impacts of warmer weather on ski resorts vary from region to region in Europe, according to Hugues François, a researcher at the French National Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment who spoke with Euronews.

François said the inland Alps have favorable altitude and conditions, while the Slovenian Alps and the Pyrenees fall into a gray area. The Iberian Peninsula or the Apennines in Italy, meanwhile, have already been pushed to the limit by climate change, according to François. 

In response, some resorts are leaning into options that don’t involve traditional lift-served skiing—not unlike Schigebiet Unterberg’s plan to prioritize ski touring and snowshoeing—to diversify their business. This summer, a new giant swing was installed at Villars-Gryons-Diablerets, Switzerland, as part of a plan to entice visitors during the warmer months.

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