St. Moritz | Lake of St. Moritz | THE ICE St. Moritz

We are hosted by nature, and by St. Moritz

As anyone who frequently visits the Mountain or the Sea knows very well, Nature must be respected, known and feared. As you know, we will not only walk, but also drive on the (frozen) water. As mere guests of the Lake, we need to be humble, prudent and wise.

This means that all our efforts have taken into consideration the environment around us, in terms of temperature and lake/ice conditions, but also in terms of pollution. We must be very thankful to St. Moritz for letting us play on their white jewel. We must act wisely, and give them back their lake as nice and clean as possible, as we want to repeat this event – and see it grow – in the future.

The ice

The frozen lake has been one of the assets of St. Moritz for more than a century, and one of the things that has contributed in creating and developing its legendary position as the world’s top winter destination. In the last decades, the use of the frozen lake has morphed from an art to a science. As we will see, nothing is done by chance.

St.Moritz has created a dedicated organisation, See Infra AG, who looks after the lake. They monitor the ice thickness with many different systems and with the help of renown glaciologist, Dr. F.Keller.

As soon as the ice reaches a thickness of 27 cm, crash tests are carried out with weights of 7,700 kg and by driving a special 3,500 kg snow-track vehicle with safety floats. After this the lake is cleared for the construction of the event-village. Ice-thickness checks are continuously carried out and at the time of the event the ice was roughly 45 cm thick, guaranteeing it perfect stability.