The hot weather got the better of the ski resort of Les 2 Alpes (Isère).

It will end its summer glacier skiing activity earlier than expected due to the poor conditions of the past few weeks, it said on Wednesday.

"We stop skiing on Sunday around 2 p.m.", instead of July 17 previously planned, said Fabrice Boutet, the general manager of Sata Group, which manages the resorts of Les Deux Alpes, Alpe d'Huez and La Grave. .

The current conditions do not allow us to offer "a product up to the task of ski racing and technical skiing", he explains, recalling that, like every summer, hundreds of athletes from national ski teams and club members are currently in Les 2 Alpes for training.

Access open to walkers and mountain bikers

The glacier is the victim of both a lack of precipitation over the past winter and the high temperatures of the past few weeks, he said.

"You have to know how to be reasonable and tell yourself that today's glacier conditions are not optimal and that it is important that we protect it and that we leave it to walkers, to contemplatives", adds he, recognizing that this will result in a shortfall for the station and for the Sata.

The glacier will be closed to skiers but will remain open to walkers and mountain bikers, who will have access to a belvedere and an altitude restaurant.

"Safety is not at all questioned", notes Fabrice Boutet, stressing that the configuration of the glacier, a cap located on a dome, is "not at all the same" as that of the Marmolada, a glacier suspended in Italy where a collapse due to high temperatures killed at least seven people on Sunday.

“You have to know how to adapt,” he stresses.

“We are not climatosceptics, we know very well that there is global warming (…) Summer skiing as we knew it in the 80s and 90s, when we were 5,000- 6,000 on the glacier, you have to forget that.

We won't find him," he said.

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