Industry News
Mölltaler Glacier Resort in Austria has announced a record-breaking achievement in snow farming, storing 300,000 cubic meters (10.6 million cubic feet) of snow from last season for the upcoming 2025–26 season. That figure is 100,000 cubic meters (3.5 million cubic feet) more than last year and six times the volume preserved in 2023–24. For those needing help picturing how much this is: 300,000 cubic meters of snow would fill a staggering 120 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
“We managed to store approximately 300,000 m³ of snow, which is a record-breaking amount. Compared to the previous season, the depot is 100,000 m³ larger, and compared to the 2023-24 season, we’ve stored six times more snow.”
— Petr Nikl, General Manager, Mölltaler Gletscher
- Related: Trying to Beat the Heatwave: German Resort Oberstdorf Attempts Snow Farming for the First Time
This exceeds the snow farming record set by Levi, Finland, which has been perfecting its snow farming for the last 10 years. This year, Levi managed to store 216,340 cubic metres of snow on the Front Slopes, which is 27% more than last season. The resort states that the increase of 46,588 cubic meters alone was enough to cover a football field with 7 meters (23 feet) of snow.
Snow farming is the attempt to preserve the snow from the previous season for the next by piling it together and covering it. In a way, it is ‘snow-recycling.’ The advantages of snow farming are that resorts will have guaranteed snow for opening day, it costs less energy than artificial snowmaking, and is also more economical than artificial snowmaking. With the right insulation materials, about 75-80% of the snow can be conserved. Before storing the snow, the resort tested several types of fleece covers at Mölltal to protect the depots. The goal was to select those with the best thermal insulation properties suitable for the specific requirements of successful snow preservation.
Mölltal collected the snow after the resort closed on June 8 and is using the specially developed fleece tarps to minimize melting during the next four months. Thanks to these efforts, the glacier will be able to reopen with prepared slopes on October 10, making it one of the earliest Alpine resorts to open. Snow farming has become an increasingly important strategy for high-altitude resorts, where warming temperatures threaten traditional early-season openings.
The Mölltaler Glacier is Carinthia’s only glacier ski area, and Austria’s second most snow-sure spot after Hintertux. It reaches a top elevation of 3,122 meters (10,240 feet) and offers a vertical drop of 1,707 meters (5,600 feet). With a skiable area of 17 kilometers (10.5 miles) serviced by nine ski lifts, Mölltal might not be the biggest resort Carinthia has to offer but offers stunning views of the Hohe Tauern National Park.
The resort is operated by Tatry Mountain Resorts, a.s. (TMR), a Slovak leisure group that owns and manages ski destinations across Austria, Slovakia, Poland, and the Czech Republic. TMR offers the Gopass SKI Season Pass, which gives users unlimited access to 12 resorts in its portfolio, including Stubaier Glacier as well as famous World Cup locations Jasna and Spindelruv Mlyn.
Thanks Julia, also for the article.
TMR is a Slovak group, headquartered in Slovak, with mostly Sloval owners. Where does the nonsense about it being Polish come from?? They just have some minor operations in Poland. Facts should be better checked.
Thanks for the correction. Apologies for getting that wrong. I have amended the piece to reflect that.
Of course, Poles are not the majority shareholders of TMR, but they are the largest nation using the TMR group’s resorts (35%), including Moltaller, and the largest buyers of Gopass seasonal ski passes:-)
Yes, in that case most resorts in Austria are German-operated and those in Switzerland are UK-operated 🙂