Early closure of the season for the Superbagnères and Mourtis ski resorts

Little snow, no gondola lift, an access road late… Difficult season for the south of Haute-Garonne. The point with Gianni Ragona, director of Osmo, the mixed trade union Haute-Garonne Montagne.

Why was this closure decision made?

Today, in terms of security, this is not ideal. The weather is not in our favor. In the coming days there is talk of heat, but also of rain, with an isotherm at 3,000 meters. We have snow cover far from thick, it is becoming more and more difficult to keep it. For this reason we have finally anticipated the closure, taking care to notify our members so as not to impose a closure on them during the week.

For your first season, did you combine everything?

It is true that we have had a succession of events that have not helped us. There was the gondola postponement, then the lack of snow, not to mention the problems caused to our bridges. And when the snow fell, it wasn’t even abundant. The thin snowpack has been battered by the heat and rain of recent days.

What is your opinion on this season?

In short, we lived two distinct seasons in one. We suffered a first part without snow, then a second part, during the February holidays, with the return of snow and presences.
On the Luchon Superbagnères, with all the problems I have just mentioned and the impossibility of taking the shuttles up to the plateau, we had forecast a 60% drop. We are at 59% at the end of the season, we haven’t made a lot of mistakes.
On the Mourtis we are minus 10-15%, always over the whole season.
Bourg-d’Oueil is a little different. We only opened the station for the month of February, so we have an 11% increase.
On the other hand, if we look at this data only for the month of February – and no longer for the entire season – we see that there has been an increase of 26% for Mourtis and 70% for Bourg-of Oueil. On Superbagnères the loss is therefore limited to 40%.

Looking to next year, with the return of the gondola lift to Superbagnères – and hoping for some snow – the attraction for our resorts is certain and these scores are getting interesting. I think the future will be good for us.

Losses difficult to amortise?

The budgets have not yet been presented to the board of directors but in fact it will not be easy. Today we are focusing all our efforts on the gondola but also on the Ravi bridges. These two projects are now running concurrently, with the aim of everything being completed by next December.