Kiltarlity, Scotland, UK - More fresh snow has been falling in the Alps and across the Northern Hemisphere, including in Alaska, California, Canada, the Indian Himalayas and the Japanese Alps. More new snow is expected later this week in Europe and conditions on the Alpine glaciers are reported to be excellent. Snow is still falling, too, in the Southern Hemisphere, with fresh accumulations in Australia although all ski areas in the country are now closed from winter 2009.
After last week’s heavy snowfalls on Austria’s glaciers, conditions are great at all of the half-dozen open glacier ski areas (Hintertux, Molltal, Pitztal, Solden, Stubai, Tux) with most reporting snow depths of up to 1.5m (five feet), much of it fresh snow. The Planai ski area at Schladming also opened over the weekend and Seefeld welcomed the Austrian national biathlon team arrived for training on its cross country ski trails.
Snowmaking efforts are underway in Norway at Hemsedal. |
In Switzerland the open areas of Saas Fee and Zermatt received more fresh snow and Engelberg has announced that it will open this weekend, with two red runs served by a T-bar and the six-seater Ice Flyer chairlift.
Italy’s Cervinia continues to open on weekends, joining Val Senales and Passo Stelvio. In France, Tignes remains the only glacier resort open and it received a dusting of fresh snow.
Scandinavia has had a great start to the 2009-10 ski season with resorts in Norway and Sweden joining Ruka in Finland, which opened last week. At least five areas have opened in the region, including one of the leading Swedish ski resorts, Funasdalen.
In North America at least five ski areas are now reported to be open. Two of the continent’s biggest resorts, Mammoth in California on the west coast and Sunday River in Maine on the east coast both opened at the end of last week, with free skiing on opening day for all comers. However Mammoth has since had to close until temperatures drop again and it can make more snow, as was Boreal near Lake Tahoe.
They were joined by the small Montana ski area of Great Divide which reported its earliest ever opening. The four resorts joined two already open in Colorado, Loveland and Arapahoe Basin. A third Colorado ski area, Copper Mountain, has opened for race training and will launch its public ski season the first weekend in November. Cataloochee in North Carolina had hoped to make its earliest ever opening on Monday after snowmaking began on Sunday, but temperatures rose and it was unfortunately unable to open as planned.
Squaw Valley California celebrates 60 years in operation this winter, along with 50 years since it staged the Winter Olympics. "These early storms are ideal for the coming season," commented Savannah Cowley, Squaw Valley's spokesperson. “This high moisture content, early season snow is absorbed into the ground which is superb for our base layer. In contrast to rain, wet snow stays on the ground long enough to moisturize the ground which allows the new snow to better adhere.”
North of the border Canada’s first ski area to open was Canada Olympic Park in Calgary on Saturday, followed closely by Mont-Saint-Sauveur in the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec on Sunday afternoon, nine days earlier than its previous record set in 1997. Next up looks likely to be Mount Norquay, Banff’s local ski hill, which plans to open weekends beginning Oct. 31 and already has a snow covering. The nearby resorts of Nakiska, Sunshine and Lake Louise all plan to open within the first few days of November.
In Asia, Japan’s Mt. Yotei near the leading resort of Niseko has seen its first snowfalls of the autumn and temperatures have dropped drastically.
In the Southern Hemisphere all but two ski areas are now believed to be closed, although there’s over a meter of snow still lying on the slopes in many major resorts in South America. The resorts still endeavoring to open (although closed several days recently by bad weather) are Turoa (2.4m/eight feet) and neighboring Whakapapa (1.6m/5.3 feet) in New Zealand.
Australia’s ski areas closed several weeks ago but recent heavy snow led to Charlotte Pass re-opening its Basin Poma over the weekend for employees to enjoy the fresh powder.
