According to Le Dauphine, the Compagnie du Mont-Blanc has been investing in snow cannon technology in order to create a snow sure resort. Therefore, the Grands Montets ski area renovates and extends its network of artificial snow production since the end of August.
Olivier Vézinhet, the Managing Director of Grands Montets and Technical Director at the Compagnie du Mont-Blanc, said that "the last two winters have reported a very precarious natural snowfall, especially during the Christmas holidays".
"Result: a great difficulty to offer skiing to our customers," he added.
This project is part of the snow-making protection plan of the ski slopes, launched last year by the Compagnie du Mont-Blanc to bring a lot more snow (hopefully not needed) to the bottom pistes of the Grands Montets.
Therefore, the Compagnie du Mont-Blanc aims to offer to tourists and chamoniards, by Christmas, even if the winter 2017-2018 will be like the previous two, the possibility of skiing.
The project aims:
- to change the supply water column of the Grands Montets ski resort from the water catchment of the Argentière glacier;
- to add 10 snow guns (snow cannons) low pressure on the blue slope of Coqs.
Total amount: €1,44 million investment.
Work is underway on the water column to extract water from the Emosson catchment point (not Emosson lake), at the Argentière glacier, and to transport it to Lognan where the pumping area is located.
About 1,6 kilometers of network, dating from 1986, to change. Therefore the Compagnie du Mont-Blanc choosed a wider diameter (40 centimeters): to meet the water requirements for the blue slope of Coqs and for future developments.
On the other hand, the new column will be buried at 1,80 meters deep. The previous one located sometimes at the ground level, is sensitive to frost and wear.
