Around 80 ski areas were open in Europe and North America at the weekend, a sizable number of the opening early thanks to big snowfalls pre-season and/or cold weather for snowmaking.
Among the big names that are opening for the weekend coming up is Val Thorens, which says it will have 70% of its terrain open with snow depths of up to a metre.
The snow is looking like this:
https://www.facebook.com/valthorens.resort/videos/10155994479537764/
As last season, Courchevel (pictured top today) have announced that to celebrate the snow they’ll be running their lifts for free, tomorrow (Wednesday 15th November) only.
In the Pyrenees, one of Spain’s biggest resort Baqueira Beret (puictured below today) says it will be opening a week early with around 30 runs open and snow depths at around 50cm mid-mountain already.
Even resorts that are sticking to their opening dates are reporting great pre-season conditions.
Here’s Lech, which has had 60cm of new snow in the past few days, today:
https://www.facebook.com/lechzuers/videos/10156011568833447/
Across the Atlantic resorts including Panorama, Killington and Mammoth have all opened early for the 2017-18 season too, with one small resort in Montana claimed its earliest opening in its 68 year history. Altogether more than 40 North American ski areas opened at the weekend.