By Raúl Revuelta
Today is cleaning day in the Pearl of the Alps!!!
Saturday 30 June 2012 will be Saas-Fee’s third Mountain Cleaning Day.
This special event aims to raise participants’ motivation and awareness
about looking after the environment. During the colder months of the
year, our slopes attract thousands of winter sport fans and, inevitably,
their litter. Both previous events saw participants collect over a
tonne of waste from the Saas-Fee
slopes. Their sacks were filled with cigarette butts, tickets, plastic
bottles, babies’ dummies, snowboards and countless other items – showing
just how necessary Mountain Cleaning Day is for keeping our environment
spic and span.
Celebrity involvement
The organisers of Mountain Cleaning Day have moved away from the
conventional community action projects that Saas-Fee has seen over the
years to instead present an event with a difference and attract as many
participants as possible. Participants are divided into various groups,
each led by a famous person. A couple of big names have already stepped
up. Once again, snowboarder Gian Simmen, who won Olympic gold in the
halfpipe event in Nagano, will prove he’s not above grabbing a bin bag
and helping out. He’ll be joined by rising freestyle star Elias Ambühl,
who achieved international fame with his victory at the legendary
freestyle.ch races and his third place ranking in the Big Air event at
the Winter X-Games in Aspen. Other celebrities will be announced soon.
Chill & Grill
The main aim of Mountain Cleaning Day, supported by the Summit
Foundation, may be to leave the Saas-Fee slopes spic and span, but the
organisers spare no effort in rewarding the volunteers for their help.
Once the cleaning is finished, they put on a big barbecue in the
Wolfsgrube and all participants receive a Roxy/Quiksilver gift.
