After a snowy November in the Alps it has turned (mostly) cold with sunny days for those lucky enough to be on the slopes already. Cover remains good for this early in the season and most major resorts are already open or opening this weekend.
Across the Atlantic there’s been lots of snow, particularly in the West of North America where Whistler clocked up more than 2m of snowfall in its first week of the season at the start of December!
Austria
There’s not been a huge amount of fresh snow in Austria this week, but most areas that haven’t opened already are opening on time as it has stayed fairly cool, so November snow hasn’t thawed and the snowmaking guns are running to top it up. Here’s the Skiwelt which opens today. The Pitztal glacier is pictured.
France
More big-name French resorts are opening for the season ever weekend now. Val d’Isere has joined Tignes so that their shared ski area can operate. Conditions have been cold, maintaining the big snow depths (for this early in the season) which built up last month and allowing the snowmaking guns to operate at capacity.
Italy
There was lots of snow in Italy a week ago, the picture above of Sestriere was taken during a 60cm snow storm! Since then it has also been cold and dry so the pistes are in great shape, off piste, not so much. More and more Italian ski areas are now open and looking good for 16-17.
Switzerland
Sunny days and snowy groomed slopes are the order of play in Switzerland at present too with very little fresh snow in the past week here too. Andermatt and Saas Fee report the deepest snow in the country with 135cm on upper slopes, but down in the valley there’s not much cover yet, although Andermatt has good top-to-bottom cover with 30cm in resort. Zermatt, pictured, with 1.1m on its glacier says there’s nothing in the village at present.
Pyrenees and Spain
The season got underway last weekend as two of the largest ski areas in the Pyrenees, Baqueira Beret in Spain (above) and Grandvalira in Andorra. Many of the region’s other 60 or so areas open this weekend. Snow cover is thin and rather reliant on snowmaking but it is only the first few days of December and the main thing is it’s open!
Scotland
The Lecht and Cairngorm both opened for weekend skiing last weekend (the Lecht pictured a week ago) but it has been a tad warm in the Highlands since then and the slopes have lost much of their cover and neither will open this weekend. So Scotland is currently awaiting a return to colder temperatures.
Scandinavia
Scandinavia has been the snowiest part of Europe this past week with some resorts recording more than 50cm of fresh snow in Norway and good conditions reported across the region.
Eastern Europe
We’ve not had reports of any areas open yet in the East but there has been quite a lot of pre-season snow according to this web cam image from Bansko in Bulgaria.
Canada
Whistler, pictured above and top, had over 3m of snow in November, more than 2m of it in the last week of last month. It lags a little way behind Revelstoke which has had 4.5m of snowfall however. Most ski areas in Canada are now open including Tremblant in Quebec in the east which has had fresh snow this week.
USA
It has been wonderfully snowy in much of the US over the past week or so. California saw some big accumulations of several feet but there were 20-40cm snowfalls in Colorado, Utah and on the East Coast too. Jackson Hole (above) opened on Thursday with a 60cm snowfall too.
