Laax in Switzerland has been running a number of projects to try to save snow from melting, and in so doing reduce the amount of snow that needs to be machine made at the end of the season. The technique is known as “snow farming.”
One of these project, in the area of Crap Sogn Gion, involved putting snow in the half pipe using snow machines and covering this with a compound cover. The snow saved meant that the half pipe and snow parks could be built earlier in the season and the energy costs for snow production were also reduced.
Last summer, after tests the previous year, a section of the piste of approx. 20 hectares on the glacier was covered with a compound cover. This meant that two to three meters of snow could be saved during the summer and the piste machine hours could be reduced by around 40%.
The projects are continuing and will be evaluated ecologically and scientifically for the next five years. The results will then be incorporated into a list of criteria for snow farming and glacier covering.