25th September, 2014
Re-publication :- our Snow Report Summary, being the text up to "The Alps", is free to re-publish, but must be clearly credited to www.J2ski.com with text including "J2Ski Snow Report" linked to this page - thank you.
Snow Report Summary
October normally sees the ski season showing early signs of getting underway in the Alps and Rockies. Although a warm autumn can scupper this normal state of affairs (and cause increasing tension if it continues into November), the very early signs have been good with record low temperatures in New England and healthy late-summer / September snowfalls in the Alps and Rockies meaning spirits are high - even if it could all suddenly change.
Glacier ski areas have started opening in the Alps already and will continue through October with gear testing and Octoberfest weekends organised. Snowmaking is also underway at high altitude and high latitude ski areas on each side of the Atlantic and several non-glacier centres in New England, Colorado and Scandinavia are currently hopeful of opening by the middle of the month.
It's very much the end of the 2014 season in the southern hemisphere where three quarters of centres are now closed.
A few areas in Australia have in fact extended their seasons into October because of the great seasons they've had and ski areas in New Zealand (rather ironically) received what has generally been agreed to be the best snowfall of a lacklustre season in the first days of spring last week after several centres had already given up and closed until 2015. Some are open for the first few weeks of October however.
This months Snow Mail is sponsored by...
The Skier's Dream that is British Columbia
The Alps
Austria
Austria is the main ski destination in the world in October with more areas open than any other country on the planet – up to eight centres will be operational in fact, five of them in Tirol.
Most of these are already open. Five centres, the Pitztal, Stubai, Molltal, Solden and Kaunertal glaciers opened for 2014-15 over the past few weekends joining year round Hintertux and Dachstein. The other two – Kitzsteinhorn and should open on the first weekend of October.
The Pitztal glacier operates Austria's highest lifts and is open for an eight month season with the Wildspitzbahn and Brunnenkogel T Bar lifts in operation to 1pm daily at present. More will be added and opening hours extended. The Kaunertal glacier reopened a week ago with 4km of groomed slopes open served by the Weisseefernerlift I and II and Falgin lifts. It too will initially be open until 1pm daily, right through to spring 2015.
France
There's been no skiing in France during September (lift assisted at least) but there have been early autumn snow flurries on the tops. That's good news for the one area due to open in the country for the month, Tignes, where the Grande Motte glacier opens on October 4th.
Les 2 Alpes will join Tignes for a week with its traditional half term opening, running this year from 25th October to 2nd November, before closing again for a few weeks ahead of full 14-15 operations getting underway. It currently reports a 145cm base on its glacier.
Italy
In Italy Val Senales re-opened for in mid-September, joining Passo Stelvio which has been open all summer and meaning there's a choice of two Italian areas through October. Val Senales reports a 55cm base.
Cervinia will open its Plateau Rosa glacier skiing, linked across the Swiss border to Zermatt, on weekends from the 18thOctober before opening daily from Halloween, 31st October.
Switzerland
Zermatt remains open year round and Saas Fee re-opened in July, but more Swiss glacier areas are scheduled to open through October. Both have seen dustings of fresh snow in September. Engelberg should be the first to open on October 4th, then the Diavolezza glacier near St Moritz in Engadin is scheduled to open on the 18th and glacier 3000 between Gstaad and les Diablerets the following weekend, the 25th.
Scandinavia
October, so long as it's an average autumn, sees the first Scandinavian ski centres opening for the season. Among the front runners are usually Levi and Ruka in Finnish Lapland, which hope to open for the weekend of October 12th/13th, or the one after, thanks to snowmaking rather than natural snowfall. This makes them usually the first non-glacier ski areas in Europe to open for the ski season, and helps gives them one of the longest ski seasons on the planet, usually through to the following May, or even June in Ruka's case. Levi stages the first non-glacier, non-indoors FIS world cup racing of the season in November so needs to be ready for that. Several other leading Scandinavian ski areas, including resorts in Norway and Sweden, start to open in late October and early November if conditions are good.
North America
Only one North American ski area is expecting to be open right through October, but others will be opening as the month progresses, so long as it's cold enough for their snowmaking to work, or they get lucky with early season snow.
The Palmer Snowfield at Timberline on Mt Hood in Oregon is planning to re-open on October 3rd and operate four days a week through the month (Friday through Monday).
Resorts hoping to open by mid-October thanks to snowmaking include Arapahoe Basin and Loveland in Colorado, among the dozen highest ski areas on the planet. Killington in Vermont on the east also says it aims to open from mid October (the golf course officially closes on the 12th) but admits that's in part down to mother nature providing low enough temperatures for them to fire up their famously might snowmaking arsenal.
It did get a boost in the last 48 hours of summer when record lows were reported across New England – with temps as low as –9C on mountain tops, and ski areas started snowmaking.
Banff in Alberta Canada aims to be the first ski area to open in the country on Halloween, 31st October, the target opening date also of Keystone, A Basin's neighbour in Colorado.
Things are looking promising if early snowfall is anything to go by as there was snowfall across the west of the continent in early September, with around a foot falling overnight in parts of Alberta and British Columbia.
Southern Hemisphere
The 2014 ski season is largely over in the southern hemisphere now with most areas already closed or planning to close in the next few weeks.
In Australia it has been a very good ski season and some of the big areas ended September with still metre deep snow. Perisher, the biggest, has extended its season to October 12th.
In New Zealand it has, by contrast, been a largely poor season with most centres opening late and closing earlier. But ironically the first days of spring this week saw huge snowfalls – by far the best of the season with up to 70cm reported. Mt Hutt at Mt Ruapehu are among the areas open in to October.
Both African ski areas are closed and most South American areas are now closed also, or will be closing on the first weekend of October in a few days, in the case of Portillo in Chile. South American ski areas have mostly reported an above average winter 2014 for snowfall
Indoor Snow and Dry Slopes
If you need a quick snow fix closer to home there are more than 50 year-round indoor snow centres and several hundred artificial surface 'dry slopes' operating in more than 50 countries around the world.
For the UK there are six indoor snow centres from Hemel Hempstead to Glasgow and around 60 dry slopes.