by Paris (CNN) — After several squeaks, the rusty wheel was finally ripped from the tarnished white pole that once stood proudly on the mountainside.
About a hundred people watching from the sidelines gathered in the small French Alpine village of Saint-Firmin to say goodbye to their ski lift as a small team worked to dismantle it late last month.
The reason? It hasn’t been in operation for years because there hasn’t been any snow.
“Global warming happened and it changed the way we look at this place,” Didier Beauzon, 63, a lifelong resident of Saint Firmin and an elected official serving the village, told CNN.
“Well, we had to give it back to nature,” he added.
The French environmental group Mountain Wilderness was tasked with dismantling the ski lift.
OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE/AFP via Getty Images
The ski area was originally built in 1964 to help village children learn to ski somewhere close to home before tackling more challenging trails in the Alps.
While there were once regular winter snowfalls, things had gotten worse in recent decades. This is a situation currently being experienced in other French and European ski resorts as the climate crisis is blamed for shortening the ski season and reducing snow and glacier cover in the mountains.
“The lack of snow meant it was last run about 15 years ago and just over a weekend. It hasn’t been used since then,” Beauzon said of his village’s ski lift.
fun and joy
The ski lift has rusted unused in recent years.
OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE/AFP via Getty Images
But it wasn’t always like this, Beauzon recalls growing up when the village organized winter activities for children at the ski resort.
The local sports club held competitions on weekends and on Wednesdays opened fun events for all comers, followed by award ceremonies in the village’s central square.
“Anybody could win an award, you just had to get to the bottom of it, no matter what,” said Beauzon.
Prices tend to be modest — a pair of socks, a candy bar — but cheerful, he said. At the end of each ski season, trophies were awarded to the village’s strongest skiers.
“Personally, I’ve never won a trophy,” said Beauzon. “But it was always a good laugh for everyone because it was always a good atmosphere.”
The lift was built in 1964 to help local children gain experience before moving on to bigger slopes.
OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE/AFP via Getty Images
Unfortunately, such traditions disappeared along with the snow. And with the lift quietly rusting away as a sad reminder of the good times gone by, the village decided to get rid of it – a challenge that proved trickier than any downhill ski run.
“Inside the pylon, we found that it was much more reinforced than we expected,” said Olivier Bustillo, manager of the environmental group Mountain Wilderness, which was tasked with dismantling the ski lift.
“We spent maybe half an hour, maybe almost an hour more per pylon,” Bustillo added.
Record heat wave
The cost of dismantling the elevator is said to be 20,000 euros.
OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE/AFP via Getty Images
It took the team of about 20 workers two days to complete the dismantling of the entire ski lift system – according to Bustillo the group has already dismantled about 10 similar ski lift systems in France.
The cost of dismantling the entire Saint-Firmin lift is around 20,000 euros ($20,691), funded mostly by the local government with the help of charities. The recovered metal was collected by a company specializing in scrap metal and will be recycled, Bustillo said.
It is unlikely that it was the last elevator to be dismantled. That year, a record-breaking heatwave swept through France and most of western Europe, pushing summer temperatures to near or above 40°C (104°F) for an extended period. Forest fires burned through the south and west of the country.
According to data from the French Environment Ministry, 62% of the French population is currently exposed to either “significant” or “very significant” climate risks.
The effects of climate change are being felt in ski resorts across France and Europe.
OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE/AFP via Getty Images
France could also face a much more challenging future, with temperatures projected to rise by 3.8C and a worst-case scenario by as much as 6.7C by 2100, according to a study by researchers at France’s national weather service, Météo France, published in October.
“Comparing our results to those based on previous generations of climate model ensembles shows that our estimated ranges are significantly higher than previously reported,” the study concludes.
gone forever
The dismantled ski lift equipment was collected by a scrap company for recycling.
OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE/AFP via Getty Images
Earlier this month, the French ski resort of Val Thorens, Europe’s highest ski resort, announced that it would postpone the opening of its ski season by a week to November 26 due to “warm autumn weather”.
In Saint-Firmin, the locals have decided to build something on the old ski lift site to remind their children of this piece of history. Many were happy that the village could finally move on and make the place usable again. But the feeling of loss remained.
“I think that people are becoming aware of the development of the climate. In fact, that’s what it’s all about. When we talk about the ski lift, people are talking about the climate,” said Beauzon.
“I felt a little nostalgic. We had to mourn a whole era that will never come back.”
Top Photo Credit: OLIVIER CHASSIGNOLE/AFP via Getty Images
