Even with a black slope The world's smallest ski resort opens in St. Gallen

The world's smallest ski resort opened in the city of St. Gallen on Saturday in front of around 200 visitors. The art project is a swan song to the nostalgic days of the T-bar lift - and an allusion to climate change.

Keystone-SDA

01.02.2025, 15:50

01.02.2025, 21:06

SDA

Four artists converted a residential building into a mountain station with an Airbnb and souvenir store. A steep slope just 20 meters long in the garden of the house separates the mountain station from the valley station of the ski lift. In between is the shortest black run in the world.

On Saturday afternoon, the ski lift celebrated its opening with a performance by artist Roman Signer. Although there was no snow, the après-ski bar was still open.

The world's smallest ski resort with 0.02 kilometers of slopes set off a media avalanche in the run-up to the project. Numerous media outlets reported on the project. St. Gallen is no longer just known for its abbey library, embroidery and sausages, as the "Chuchichästli" program on Radio Télévision Suisse in French-speaking Switzerland recently noted. Skiing is currently the order of the day in the largest town in eastern Switzerland.

A tribute to the T-bar lift

Thanks to the St. Gallen art project, the Bügellift has returned to an altitude of 740 meters above sea level, from which it was displaced in recent decades due to a lack of snow. "We want to remind people how natural snow was," artist Anita Zimmermann told the St. Galler Tagblatt newspaper.

Things were not much better for the T-bar ski lift in areas where snow was guaranteed. There it usually had to make way for the comfortable chairlift with heated seats. And the bow lift operator with cap and sunglasses, who pushed the bow under the snow sports enthusiasts' butts to the sound of folk music from the transistor radio, has been replaced by a conveyor belt that transports the winter sports enthusiasts to the ideal boarding position of the chairlift.

The art project planned for two months can therefore also be seen as a tribute to the chairlift, whose time is running out. Since its invention 90 years ago in Davos, it has transported generations of winter sports enthusiasts up the mountain. It brings back many positive memories. This is probably why the St. Gallen campaign was so well received.

SVP overturns funding contribution

According to the artists, the art project at Schneebergstrasse 50 in St. Gallen cost CHF 187,000. The cantonal government approved 45,000 francs from the lottery fund.

However, the SVP in the cantonal council then requested that this contribution be canceled. A spokesperson explained that no money should go to left-wing climate activists who campaign against ski resorts and winter tourism. A conservative majority then canceled the grant.

The four artists finally launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise the missing 45,000 francs. The money was raised shortly before the five hangers of the world's smallest ski area made their first turns at 3 pm on Saturday afternoon, according to a spokesperson for the artists' collective.

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