No alpine skiing this winter: Alsace's Lac Blanc ends its 56-year ski era
The Lac Blanc 900 base area in the Vosges in summer, with the six-seat chairlift that the bike park keeps. Photo: HagridLiving via Wikimedia Commons, CC0
On Saturday 31 October 2026, the contract of the family company that ran the lifts at Lac Blanc, Alsace's largest alpine ski area, comes to an end. From Sunday 1 November a public body takes over, but only for the bike park. In winter 2023-24 the area had 2 days of skiing.
In short
- Lac Blanc Tonique's lift contract with the public owner ends on Saturday 31 October 2026.
- From 1 November a public régie runs the bike park; alpine skiing is not part of it.
- The regional audit court counted 2 ski days in 2023-24, against 76 at La Bresse.
- Winter lift revenue fell from €1,244,141 in 2018-19 to €4,651 in 2023-24.
- Nine of about 15 permanent staff move to the new operator.
What ends on 31 October
Lac Blanc lies between 900 and 1,200 m above Orbey and Le Bonhomme in the Haut-Rhin. It has 14 km of alpine pistes, a six-seat chairlift and six drag lifts. A public syndicate, the SMALB, owns the area, and its members are the Collectivité européenne d'Alsace and the Kaysersberg valley council.
Since December 2005 the SMALB has rented the lifts to the company Lac Blanc Tonique under a public-service contract. The contract ended in 2023, but nobody bid in the tenders of 2023 and 2025, so it was extended to 31 October 2026. The skiing itself is older: Germaine and Jean-Paul Jaeglé opened the area in 1970, hence the 56 years, the DNA recalled on 31 October.
"We're glad it continues, unlike what was announced in July," Patrice Perrin, director of Lac Blanc Tonique, told ICI Alsace on Saturday 31 October. He hopes that alpine skiing returns in the winter after this one.
From "end of skiing" to a bike-park régie
On Wednesday 1 July 2026, the SMALB committee voted unanimously to stop running the lifts from the 2026-27 season. The syndicate's statement blamed "the effects of global warming on the site", Rue89 Strasbourg reported. A petition to save the bike park collected about 26,500 signatures.
On Wednesday 9 September the SMALB announced a régie for the bike park, a public operator with its own budget. It voted the statutes on Wednesday 7 October. The régie has an initial budget of €400,000, from two repayable advances of €200,000 by its two members, according to Remiremont Vallées.
| Date | Step |
|---|---|
| December 2005 | Lift contract with Lac Blanc Tonique, 18 years |
| 2023 and 2025 | Two tenders for a new contract, no bidder |
| Wednesday 1 July 2026 | SMALB votes to stop the lifts from 2026-27 |
| Wednesday 9 September 2026 | Régie for the bike park announced |
| Saturday 31 October 2026 | Lac Blanc Tonique's contract ends |
| End of March 2027 | Bike park due to reopen, weather permitting |
What the audit court found
The Chambre régionale des comptes Grand Est, the regional audit court, adopted its final report on the SMALB on Wednesday 3 June 2026. It counted the ski days that the operator reported.
| Winter | Ski days at Lac Blanc | Winter lift revenue |
|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | not given | €1,244,141 |
| 2021-22 | 73 | €1,075,600 |
| 2022-23 | 39 | €708,137 |
| 2023-24 | 2 | €4,651 |
| 2024-25 | not given | €605,474 |
In 2023-24 La Bresse, the largest area in the Vosges, had 76 days. About 150 snow guns cover 70 % of Lac Blanc's pistes, the court wrote. In 2024 the members' contributions made up 75 % of the syndicate's revenue.
Not only the climate
The audit court also wrote that the contract had lost its profitability "to the point that no candidate wished to bid in the last two tenders". Marc Schiele, a SMALB member and mayor of Ammerschwihr, told France 3 Grand Est in July that there was "a problem with the delegation, essentially".
Lac Blanc is the third Alsatian area to give up alpine skiing, after Le Tanet in 2024 and Le Gaschney in 2025. Cross-country skiing on 66 km of trails, snowshoeing and sledging stay on the programme, according to Remiremont Vallées. As of 31 October 2026, the future of alpine skiing at Lac Blanc is still open.
Elsewhere, small areas have the same problem. In Bavaria the Kolbensattel above Oberammergau ends its ski operation, and in Salzburg the Heutal area filed for restructuring on 29 October.
What small areas mean for your skis
Areas like Lac Blanc are where many families in Alsace and Lorraine learned to ski, on short, easy pistes close to home. When they close, skiers drive farther, to La Bresse, Gérardmer or the Alps, and ski longer days on bigger slopes.
For those days, a forgiving piste ski that also holds on hard snow helps. Compare the Head Supershape e-V5 with the Rossignol Experience 78 Carbon on the makers' figures, or let Pick-a-Ski rank the catalog for your level and terrain.
