Where do you want to go skiing? To Sölden? To Val Gardena, Ötz or Stubaital? Before the season kicks off, you should take another look at the exhibition “Alps under pressure”, which has been on display at the Alpine Museum in Munich since March. Admittedly, not to arouse anticipation, but to understand what the increasing competition between winter sports resorts is doing to nature: more snow cannons, ski lifts, cable cars, viewing platforms, larger restaurants, ever more spectacular technical aids for fun. Since 1954, the original 570 kilometers of pistes in 150 resorts have grown to 25,000 kilometers in 450 resorts.
Dinosaur fun at 1,800 meters in the Chiemgau Alps
The municipality of Kals am Großglockner
View over the Auenfeld with the Auenfeldjet
Storage basin in the Sölden glacier
Glacier cover sheets at the Eisgrat station on the Stubai Glacier
Development of the Piz Val Gronda
Sesto valley station with clearing and construction work for the Helm-Rotwand slope
Construction of the reservoir on the Hausberg near Garmisch-Partenkirchen
In the meantime, however, the Alps are also being used as a green energy supplier: Wind farms and hydroelectric power plants are being built or planned and are rarely compatible with nature conservation and the interests of the tourism industry.
The Alpine associations of all the countries in the Alpine arc have collected a lot of material for the exhibition: 150 projects are soberingly documented in unsparing summer photographs. Who knows that entire hills are dug up for artificial snowmaking in order to lay pipelines and build reservoirs? Apart from the immense energy consumption, high-tech adventure playgrounds with rides have to be set up in the destroyed landscape, or viewing platforms built where there is already a view, so that visitors don’t stay away in summer.
The exhibition contains some drama. Unfortunately, not much space is given to the presentation: it is a single room and the pictures are often too small and therefore seem harmless.
But to reassure you: Of course we want to go skiing again this year, but perhaps we will reward those places with our visit that strive for gentle tourism – some of them can be found on the net under the keyword “mountaineering villages“.
“Alps under pressure. Development projects in the Alpine region”, until February 15 at the Alpine Museum, Praterinsel, Munich, www.alpenverein.de
This article in a collaboration with the magazine Baumeister, which is also published by Callwey Verlag.