• Snowfarming is a Scandinavian technique for conserving snow.

  • Snow is collected and stored in mounds under a layer of sawdust on a northern slope during the summer.

  • The Bassens station has been using this technique for five years and was able to open this Saturday, to the delight of professional athletes who can thus begin their training.

“Oooh the snow!

Jeanne Richard, 20, has just put on her skis and made a smooth first lap on the small three-kilometre cross-country ski run created from scratch this week by snow groomers from a huge pile of snow of 13,000 cubic meters lovingly preserved all summer nearby.

After a boiling summer, snow has finally dusted the Alps.

But the small Savoyard resort of Bessans is launching its Nordic ski season this weekend by offering… last year's snow, from “snowfarming”, a Scandinavian conservation technique.



“It's not good fresh snow that just fell the day before, but it's not at all embarrassing, we adapt.

And then we are so happy to be able to ski in early November!

“Explains the young woman, member of the France B biathlon team, before going to lie down on the ground to shoot a rifle, under the watchful eye of her coach.

Barely officially opened early on Saturday, the mini-track saw a flock of a hundred skaters, including high-level French and Polish hopefuls, delighted to finally be able to put away the roller skis used in summer.

Intoxicated by the good crisp air at altitude, they spin at full speed on the thick white ribbon deployed in the middle of fields that are still very green despite the thin white layer that fell on the massifs the day before.

Cross-country skiers and high-level biathletes are the main beneficiaries of this early opening, the first for a Nordic resort in France this year – excluding sites on glaciers –, even if the general public also has access in the afternoon.

This is the fifth consecutive year that Bessans, a small town in Maurienne at an altitude of 1,700 meters, has resorted to snowfarming, a technique consisting in keeping snow from the previous winter – natural and artificial mixed – under a thick layer of sawdust. , a “sarcophagus” that limits its melting.

17% of stock was lost this summer despite the heat wave

The site chosen, facing due north and in the shade of a mountain, benefits from a very cold microclimate, and the pile of snow has been pampered all summer with a rake to "avoid any crevices and heat infiltration", relates Laurent Vidal, director of the station.

In the end, only 17% of the stock was lost this summer despite the heat wave, according to him.

When the time comes, the sawdust is removed and stored in a separate pile to await reuse next year, and the snow transported by truck and then spread into a very compact icy track around the biathlon stadium, at the foot of high mountains. covered with bare larches.

This technique of welding while waiting for the first "real" winter snow is only used by a handful of resorts in France, but more abroad where stocks of white gold are sometimes even artificially refrigerated.

Even if it is only used on some of the 120 km of slopes in the resort, it brings, for an estimated cost of 50,000 euros all inclusive, a real "added value for the dynamism" of Bessans, underlines Mayor Jérémy Track.

A “maturely thought out” opening with the help of specialized forecasters

The approach “is not necessarily unanimous” in these times of climate crisis, he acknowledges.

But the criticisms sometimes come under "counter discussions" and the municipality is "sensitive to environmental issues", he assures.

Bessans, like many other ski areas, now uses the Climsnow projection tool which helps them adapt and invest according to long-term snow forecasts: its results, released a few weeks ago , reassured its leaders.

As for the final decision to open the station on Saturday, it was only taken on Monday after having been "maturely considered" with the help of specialized forecasters.

“If the weather had remained mild, we would have made the decision to postpone the opening”, explains the mayor.

It is "a season opener, not a communication stunt", he insists.

“This snow that we have stored is precious and our responsibility is not to do anything with it”.

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