After natural snowfall last month, snowmaking for the start of winter 16-17, hopefully later this month, is now underway at Loveland Ski Area (pictured) in Colorado, as well as at Copper Mountain, Colorado and Arapahoe Basin Ski Area, some of the world's highest ski areas.
It's an annual battle to claim 'first in US' to open, last year won by Loveland on 29th October, although the areas have managed to open in late September some years. Actual scheduled opening dates at the three areas are in the first week or so of November.
"We will keep going as long as weather permits," an Arapahoe Basin spokesperson said of snowmaking in a press release, "and we are prepared to run 24 hours a day if Mother Nature deems it possible."
In fact the near year round Timberline ski area in Oregon also claims to be the first in the US to open as it hardly ever closes and some ski areas in New England and California have also made the claim some years by the clever use of snowmaking machines.
Elsewhere in the world there are currently about a dozen ski areas open in Austria, France, Italy, Norway and Switzerland.
Geilo in Norway is the only non-glacier ski area in the northern hemisphere open thanks to re-using snow stockpiled from last season And spread out on a ski run.
Next up Ruka in Lapland aims to be the first non-glacier ski area to open with fresh snow (albeit machine made) next Monday 10th October and Kitzbuhel in Austria and Arosa in Switzerland aim to open a little bit of terrain in late October despite having no glaciers thanks to special snowmaking systems.
Just a few ski areas remain open in the southern hemisphere although ironically around a foot of fresh snow fell on Australian mountains just AFTER the season ended there, one of the biggest falls of 2016, leading to calls for centres to re-open.