The Finnish ski area of Ruka opens for the 2017-18 ski season at 9.30am on Friday, 6th October, 2017.
The resort uses snow stockpiled from last season and stored beneath a protective covering of sand and tarpaulins which it spreads out on its Saarua 13 ski run.
The run, which is served by the Saarua III chairlift will stay open to 7pm. The Saarua 12 run is expected to open too on Saturday. Groups from ski clubs are expected to start arriving to train on the slopes from next week.
Temperatures at Ruka are in the region of -2 to +4C at present.
“With regard to the opening of the slopes, everything is in order and the snow has been preserved well over the summer. With this amount of snow we will have a downhill run and we hope to get freezing temperatures soon in order to get more slopes open as soon as possible,” said Ruka’s director Matti Parviainen.
Ruka has one of the world’s longest ski seasons for a ski area without a glacier, only Arapahoe Basin in Colorado and Mammoth in California tend to have longer seasons, depending on snow conditions.
Another Scandinavian ski area, Geilo in Norway, opened a slope using a similar snow storage technique a week ago.
