Abondance Ski Valley is a mid-sized ski area in the

Haute-Savoie Haute-Savoie (; Arpitan: ''Savouè d'Amont'' or ''Hiôta-Savouè''; en, Upper Savoy) or '; it, Alta Savoia. is a department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France, bordering both Switzerland and Italy. Its prefecture is ...

region of France, near Châtel and La Chapelle d'Abondance. The resort has been open since at least 1964 and was closed in 2007, when the local council voted to shut down the area after 15 years of loss-making. The resort was reopened, however, in 2009 when Gregory Lynn Sherwood, an American entrepreneur, made a deal with the local mayor to operate the ski area for the next 12 years.

Location

Abondance Ski Valley is located in the Abondance Valley, in the

Chablais Alps The Chablais Alps are a mountain range in the western Alps. They are situated between Lake Geneva and the Mont Blanc Massif. The Col des Montets separates them from the Mont Blanc Massif in the south, and the Rhône valley separates them from the ...

. The resort is one of 12 ski stations in the

Portes du Soleil Les Portes du Soleil (literally "The Doors of the Sun") is a major skisports destination in the Alps, encompassing thirteen resorts between Mont Blanc in France and Lake Geneva in Switzerland. With more than 650 km of marked pistes (claimed ...

linked ski area, and is open to Portes du Soleil combined ticket holders, however it is not linked to any other resorts and a drive to La Chapelle d'Abondance or Châtel is required in order to access the rest of the Portes du Soleil.

Closure

In 2007, the ski area received media attention after it was reported to have shut down due to

global warming In common usage, climate change describes global warming—the ongoing increase in global average temperature—and its effects on Earth's climate system. Climate change in a broader sense also includes previous long-term changes to E ...

, the first ski area in the Alps to become a casualty of climate change. This did not turn out to be the case, however, as the ski area had been suffering from financial losses for a long time, and the notoriously poor 2006-2007 ski season was the last straw; since reopening, Abondance has not had significant issues with snow compared to other low-altitude ski resorts.

References

External links

Official website
Ski stations in France Sports venues in Haute-Savoie {{france-skiing-stub