Too warm: the Stelvio glacier suspends summer skiing

The company running the lifts at the Stelvio pass has suspended summer skiing on the glacier, in the upper Valtellina. The cable cars remain open for walkers.

Snow conditions are the reason for the decision. Successive heatwaves over recent weeks, the absence of overnight cooling of the snowpack and frequent thunderstorms "do not allow us to guarantee the usual standards of quality and, above all, of safety required for summer skiing", the operator Sifas said.

The key factor is the overnight cooling. On a glacier, snow that melts at the surface during the day refreezes at night when the temperature drops below zero. If that does not happen, the snowpack stays saturated with water and becomes unstable, with holes and runnels that make the pistes unusable.

The third closure in a few weeks

The Stelvio is the third summer ski area in the Alps to stop. Saas-Fee suspended operations at the beginning of this week, Zermatt at the end of July. These are the three destinations that traditionally host August training for national alpine ski teams, the Swiss squads among them.

"Our team will continue to monitor the situation and conditions on the mountain constantly, in the hope of a drop in temperatures," the company added, saying that any reopening would be announced promptly.

For competitive squads, the simultaneous closure of all three areas means moving August preparation to the southern hemisphere, to Chile or Argentina, at far higher cost. Smaller federations that cannot afford it postpone the start of their on-snow season to the autumn, when higher glaciers reopen.