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Sporting commemoration of a ranger

The 29th edition of the “Danilo Re Memorial” took place from 16 to 19 January 2025 in Scuol in the Swiss National Park. This year, for the first time, CIPRA took part in the international meeting of representatives of Alpine protected areas and organisations.

...Oh!

… The skiers must be able to swish over gleaming white snow, the ice skaters must glide across brilliant white ice and the biathletes shoot through deep white snow drifts. The Winter Olympic Games in Switzerland must be absolutely snow-white.

Olympics-free Alps!

Open letter to Thomas Bach, IOC President Schaan/LI, 25 February 2014

Why Sochi is not in the Alps

The idea of the Alps as a venue for the Winter Olympics is these days scarcely conceivable. CIPRA has now produced a review of the reasons underlying this, the experiences gained from the candidatures of Annecy, Salzburg, Munich and Graubünden (Grisons), and what remains of the Turin Games.

Point of view: the enlightened Olympics-free Alps

The referendum decisions against "Munich 2022" and "Graubünden 2022" prove that the Olympic spirit is dead. Simply not everyone has yet noticed.

Oh...!

… the new silver bullet aimed at reviving the ailing winter tourism sector comes in the form of so-called "Downhill Bubbles".

Green winter sports

Ski areas are constructing climate-friendly lift facilities and France has now introduced a new law that obliges lift operators to provide information on CO2 consumption. A report on how ski areas are attempting to be environmentally friendly.

Oh...!

… The Swiss Alpine Club (SAC) is this year celebrating its 150th anniversary and has got Mother Nature to build it a table of snow and ice at an altitude of 2,700 metres.

Winter Olympics in Munich 2022? No comment

In just two months the citizens of several Bavarian municipalities will be deciding on their candidacy for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games, four days before the official deadline for applications. People seem reluctant to discuss the candidacy openly - does anyone actually want the Winter Olympics?

Like growing bananas on Piz Palü

It is important to keep your feet on the ground. That is the reason why CIPRA members held a cross-border trek along the Alpine chain – as a network-building project and a kind of Long March, which also made tracks on Facebook.

CIPRA's point of view: The Alps are far too valuable for the Olympics

The result of the vote held on 3 March 2013 in Graubünden is clear: 52.7% are against the Winter Olympics being held there in 2022. This example shows that there is no desire for gigantism in the Alps.

Next generation to bear risk of Winter Olympics

The Swiss canton of Graubünden wants to hold a "sustainable" Winter Olympics in 2022. While the many open questions regarding the candidacy have stirred passions in Switzerland, Munich's candidacy is not quite so controversial. But time is pressing.

An Alpine "arms race": the desire for fun and games

Europe's highest suspension bridge is being opened in Switzerland, while an Austrian peak is getting a four-armed cross that is accessible to visitors - unbelievable adventures in the Alps.

Olympic candidacy - a questionable venture?

Forecasts estimate that the 2022 Winter Olympics in Switzerland will cost 4.5 billion Swiss francs - or, as experience shows, even more. Is it worth it? In March 2013 the citizens of Graubünden will go to the polls to decide.

CIPRA's point of view: Torino 2006: a hard lesson - but nothing learned

The Olympic Winter Games 2006 have left a burdensome legacy. The idea is thus to close the loss-making bobsleigh and replace it with an indoor ski slope. Is Turin simply throwing good money after bad?

Impacts of Global Warming on Mountaineering: A Classification of Phenomena Affecting the Alpine Trail Network

Olympic bid by Annecy: repercussions underestimated

French environmental protection agencies have said that the "impact of the Olympic Games on the environment are widely underestimated in the application documents".

Publication: The Alps in 2010

The new publication titled The Alps by the Permanent Secretariat of the Alpine Convention provides a comprehensive overview of the Alps, including a wealth of cartographic material. For over a thousand years the Alpine landscape has been used as a cultural landscape.

Olympic Games: no benefit to the national economy

Switzerland is once again discussing its candidacy for the 2022 Winter Olympics. Environmental organisations are warning against the ecological and economic repercussions. Even Marco Blatter, former CEO of Swiss Olympic, has been quoted on Swiss radio, saying that he was glad the 2006 Games were not held in the Valais. He added that in Turin/I the Games had grown out of all proportion. "With all the infrastructure investments Turin cost around CHF 4.5 bn; Vancouver is costing around CHF 6 bn; and Sochi 2014 is officially budgeting for CHF 13 bn," reports Switzerland's SonntagsZeitung.

The shreds of Turin

Mountain regions are footing the bill for the Winter Olympics - the Winter Olympics bring fame and glory and an economic revival to the regions. For a fortnight. Leaving behind an oversized infrastructure, debts and empty beds. That, in a nutshell, is Turin four years after the 20th Olympic Winter Games.

An Alpine Museum for Slovenia

In early August more than 1'000 mountaineers and mountain enthusiasts attended the opening of the Slovenian Alpine Museum (Slovenski planinski muzej - SPM) in Mojstrana/SI. The multitude of guests who attended underlines just how strong the demand is for such an institution in the Slovenian Alps. Slovenia owes its Alpine Museum first and foremost to Miro Eržen, who fought for the project for 25 years. The new Museum was officially inaugurated by the President of Slovenia Danilo Türk.

Per Alpes - Discovering the Alps in 20 circular walks

Such is the title of the hiking guide that has just been published by the Permanent Secretariat of the Alpine Convention. It showcases and describes 20 selected trekking routes across the alpine arc, touching on all the alpine states that are part of the Alpine Convention. By presenting the Alps as a tourist destination that goes beyond the national borders of the individual countries this book contributes in its way towards implementing the Alpine Convention's protocol on tourism.

Leisure: car-free mobility

Leisure activities that do not involve the use of cars are now "in", as the increasing number of information packs clearly shows. The Alpine Club South Tyrol (AVS) for instance recently published five new brochures, each featuring 15 to 20 hiking routes whose starting and finishing points can all be reached by public transport. In the series Hiking Without Cars the Alpine Club has compiled a total of some 300 hiking tips for the whole of South Tyrol. As the AVS remarks in a press release, "It should be a priority for tourist regions to adopt measures that promote the use of public transport for travel both to and from destinations as well as for activities at the holiday destination itself".

Uphill with solar energy

The village of Tenna in the Safien valley of the Swiss canton Graubünden is working hard on a world premiere. The Skilift Tenna cooperative has decided to replace an ancient ski lift by the first solar-powered ski lift ever.

Low-carbon travel from the UK to the ski slopes

Taking the train from London to go skiing in Sestriere/I sounds like a nightmare scenario. But, as a new specialist website proves, it's not. For a number of weeks now, avid skiers can go to www.snowcarbon.co.uk/ (en) to find the most convenient train journeys to take them from London/UK to the Alps or the Pyrenees to go skiing.

Turin/I: Olympic sports facilities left to waste away

Since the close of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin many of the sports facilities and installations have been left abandoned. The five ski jumps in Pragelato, for example, for which the building costs exceeded 34 million Euros, are now closed off and unused.

Hiking right across the Alps

The recently published book Via Alpina - 2500 kilometres from one coast to another (Via Alpina - 2'500 kilomètres d'une mer à l'autre) recounts the adventure of crossing the entire Alpine range. In 2007 Vincent Tornay followed the Via Alpina Red Trail for a total of 119 days in search of the people and landscapes that make up the Alps of today. He covered 2500 km and 124,000 metres of difference in altitude as he hiked through the eight Alpine states, from the Adriatic coastline to Monaco.

Mountain hike for climate protection

On 15 August 2009, some seventy hikers went up to the Goldbergkees glacier on the Hoher Sonnblick in Salzburg/A to draw attention to the impacts of global climate change.

Why do you go hiking?

Together with the French Ramblers' Association and the French Alpine Club, the French association "Grande Traversée des Alpes" are trying to find the answer to the simple question, why do tourists go hiking on mountain and woodland paths or through dunes and deserts?

First carbon-footprint calculation for a ski school

The carbon footprint of a ski school in France has been measured for the first time.