Kitzbühel says it is aiming to open for the season on Saturday 22nd October, around two months before most other non-glacier ski areas in the Austrian Tirol.
The resorts has been pushing back on the traditional season dates in the region for about a decade now, opening initially in mid-November and then earlier and earlier in the season.
The results appear to be being achieved by clever use of snowmaking in an area of the mountain that can hold the snow even in warmer temperatures.
The move to open earlier each season (and close later, with 1st May 2017 the target end date for this coming season after more than six months open, all being well), may be connected to a major OECD report published a decade ago in to the likely effects of climate change, which was taken as predicting Kitzbühel was under particular threat from rising temperatures because it is one of Europe’s lowest major resorts at 800m and has one of the lowest ski areas, peaking at just about 2,000m in altitude when many modern purpose-built resorts are built 1000m higher and have slopes extending above 3000m and sometimes much higher.
Kitzbühel, which previously produced a graph showing natural snowfall was typically arriving later and finishing sooner than in decades past, although it often now falls heavier when it does come so the overall totals remain fairly constant; has published a new graph showing its average season length has in fact increased from 140 days in 1992-93 to 155 days by 2014-15.
Ruka in Lapland claims the longest ski season for a non-glacier in the world thanks to its northerly latitude. It is aiming to open on 10th October and normally stays open well into spring, Previously it stayed open to June but in recent years it has more often been mid-May.
