Four more ski areas have announced they'll be opening for their 2017-18 ski seasons this weekend, on Saturday, September 30th.
Tignes will kick off the French season when the lifts start turning again on the Grand Motte glacier. Other than a week of operations at les 2 Alpes at the end of October it is expected to be the only French ski area open until mid-November.
In Austria two more glacier ski areas – the Dachstein and Kitzsteinhorn (pictured top) – will also open on Saturday taking the number of Austrian glacier ski areas open to 8 – more than half the total number of ski areas open in the entire northern hemisphere from tomorrow (15).
The fourth area to open will be Geilo in Norway, using a technique it has for early opening for the past few autumns – stockpiling snow at the end of the previous winter then spreading it on a slope in late September to create a 1km run just as temperatures are dropping low enough to prevent rapid thawing and possibly allow snowmaking top ups.
The same method is being used by Ruka in Lapland to open a week later and Kitzbuhel in Austria in a fortnight's time.
Geilo can claim to be the first non-glacier ski area in the world to open for 17-18 and Kitzbuhel the first non-glacier ski area in the alps to do so, if you can count starting the season with the previous season's snow.