It may still be October but the new season is upon us and here’s the first of our new weekly guides to where the snow is this week?
The good news is that more than 20 ski areas are already open and that list keeps getting longer as the main season draws nearer.
The even better news is that there have been huge snowfalls in the alps, particularly over Austria and Switzerland over the past 48 hours bringing amazing October accumulations of up to a metre of new snow. The sun is now out so anyone who can get to one of the open glaciers this weekend is in for some epic skiing or boarding.
Alps
Austria
Hintertux
Austria has almost as many areas open as the rest of the world put together at the moment, with eight glacier ski areas open. The ski world’s focus will be on Solden this weekend however as the first World Cup races of the season are staged there. Resorts here have reported up to a metre of fresh snow and are looking great for this weekend.
France
Les 2 Alpes Glacier
Only Tignes is open in France at the moment but Les 2 Alpes opens on Saturday for one week only! (well, until it re-opens in late November) for its special Enjoy The Glacier festival. Here they are prepping the park.
Switzerland
Glacier 3000 Snow Preparation
Two more glacier ski areas in Switzerland will open tomorrow, Engelberg and Glacier 3000 above Gstaad and Les Diablerets – the picture above shows the base being prepared for the latter’s opening day. They join Saas Fee, Zermatt and Diavolezza near St Moritz placing Switzerland in second placed for most area’s open behind Austria’s seven.
Dolomites
Marmolada Glacier, Italy
There are no ski areas open in the Dolomites at present although Dolomiti Superski reported areas there, due to start opening in a month’s time, have had up to a metre of snow. Elsewhere in Italy the glaciers of Passo Stelvio and Val Senales are open with plenty of fresh snow there too.
Scandinavia
Ruka
Ruka in Finland has opened for its eight month ski season. Two runs are open with a mixture of natural and machine made snow.
North America
USA
Arapahoe Basin
Arapahoe Basin in Colorado was the first ski area to open in the US last weekend. That’s if you exclude the near-year-round slopes of Timberline in Oregon. Another of the world’s highest resorts, Loveland, plans to open any day.
Canada
Banff
Canada’s ski season is due to start a week today on Halloween, 31st October, here’s how it was looking last week.
Southern Hemisphere
Mt Ruapehu
The 2014 ski season is pretty well over in the southern hemisphere. But one area, Mt Ruapehu in New Zealand, is still open and plans to stay open in to ‘Snovember’ on November 9th. It currently has a 175cm base.
