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The
3,238-metre (10,623-ft) Mount Titlis has seen large swathes of
ice disappear from its glacier over recent decades. Within the
next half century, all of it is expected to melt.
"We lay the fleece over the glacier like a natural protective
shield," Gian Darms, who manages snow conditions and piste
security for cable car operator Titlis Bergbahnen, told Reuters.
Declining snow cover as a result of climate change poses an
existential threat to ski resorts throughout Europe. A glacier
can provide some protection, preserving piles of snow year-round
that can even be deployed on barer ski pistes elsewhere on the
slopes.
But the Swiss government has said 90% of its remaining 1,500
glaciers will be gone by the end of the century if nothing is
done to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Darms said Titlis Bergbahnen has had to continually increase the
size of the cover it lays on the glacier in recent years to
preserve what is left.
A handful of employees work over five-to-six weeks to cover
parts of the glacier with a protective polyester fleecing, which
helps stave off summer melting and preserve more of the snow
that fell in the previous winter.
They now cover some 100,000 square metres, or roughly the size
of fourteen football fields, with the reflective fleece, which
helps radiate the sun's energy back into the atmosphere, before
spending weeks peeling it back off again.
Collected snow is then used to help fill glacial cracks that
otherwise might open on the resort's ski pistes, while also
helping to keep in place the lift supports that are fixed into
the ice.
(Reporting by Arnd Wiegmann in Titlis and Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi
in Zurich; Writing by Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi; Editing by Alex
Richardson)
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