June's heatwave has significantly accelerated the melting of snow and glaciers in the French Alps, creating water shortages at mountain shelters ahead of the tourist hiking season. Noemie Dagan, manager of the Selle refuge, observes that snowfields are melting notably earlier than usual, leading to potential shelter closures. Backup solutions include long plastic pipes to siphon water from nearby glaciers, though these are challenging due to steep terrain and violent storms. Over her 15-year career, Dagan has seen major changes in the mountains, with local guides noting water supply concerns were previously unexpected.
"Everything has dried up," said Noemie Dagan, who looks after the Selle refuge, located at an altitude of 2,673 meters in the Ecrins. The snowfield that usually supplies water to her 60-bed chalet already "looks a bit like what we would expect at the end of July or early August". "We are nearly a month early in terms of the snow's melting."
Dagan's backup solutions to avoid such a scenario include plastic pipes a kilometre long - installed with difficulty - to collect water from a nearby glacier. The slopes along which the pipe was laid are steep, unstable and vulnerable to increasingly violent storms ravaging the range.
In the 15 years that she has worked in the sector, Dagan has witnessed "a metamorphosis" of the mountains and glaciers that are "our watertowers". "We are basically the sentinels who have seen what is coming."
Thomas Boillot, a local mountain guide, said the possibility one day of seeing water supply issues affecting the mountain shelters had "never even crossed our minds". But such cases have increased "and there will likely be more."
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