Load shedding cancels Afriski’s skiers’ winter wonderland
The Afriski Mountain Resort in Lesotho will not open its slopes to skiers this coming winter after failing to overcome challenges brought about by load shedding.
The resort took to social media to announce the cancellation of the winter ski slopes citing various challenges and risks at the resort.
Speaking to Jacaranda FM News, the company’s CEO Reuphillan Pelser said the cancellation was due to the continuous rolling of black outs experienced by the resort.
“There is a few reasons but one of the reasons is because it is costly to create a winter wonderland experience in terms of creating the snow that we use on the slopes. The technology and the snow machines that we use is highly dependent on electricity, one of the main reasons that we have been monitoring in the past couple of months is with load shedding.
“Looking at what is the probability for us to switch on our snow guns when we need it and what we have found is that we are on the same grid as Clarens and what we have seen in the past four five months is that we have been on load shedding for a minimum of four hours a day and also, instead of just the published times of load shedding, we would also have load shedding at odds times for longer periods.”
According to the Afriski Mountain Resort, this is the first time since 2009 that Afriski is not able to provide a winter adventure.
Pelser added that the cancelation is not permanent, as they are hoping for alternative sources of energy.
“We are making plans to see if we can have alternative energy sources implemented. We will be talking to the Lesotho government to see if there is assistance that we can obtain in terms of energy supply. We are like any business and we will have to make plans and do with what we have but in the end of the day the resort itself sleeps 485 people on site, and what we are hoping is that we will still have our guests that love the winter will just come out and see the snow.
“We still invite you to enjoy a winter holiday in the quiet of the Maluti mountains. Natural snowfall will still occur on some days, allowing for other winter activities to be enjoyed,” added Pelser.
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