Davos Klosters will open one slope this weekend...
More autumn snows around the world, more ski areas open and more to come!
This Week's Snow Headlines
- First ski area opens for season in California.
- 7 Swiss areas open by weekend; as Gstaad glacier opens with Davos and Laax to follow.
- First FIS Men's World Cup race (Solden 29th October) cancelled due to wind.
- 40cm of fresh snow reported at ski areas in northern Scandinavia.
- Heavy snowfall in US Midwest
- 60cm (two feet) of weekend snow reported on the Dachstein glacier.
- Pre-season snow-making underway at higher resorts in the Alps and Dolomites.
- Snow reported in Slovakia.
It has been another exciting week of pre-season snowfalls and early openings in the skiing world with some heavy snowfall in northern Norway and in parts of the Alps, as well as enticing dustings on higher Scottish slopes and in Eastern Europe.
More glacier slopes have opened, with a bit of a switch from Austria to Switzerland, although Kitzbuhel also managed to open a second ski slope for the weekend, this time on the Hahnenkamm area, using its snow farming technique. Gstaad's Glacier 3000 opened last Saturday and Davos will open some terrain on Parsenn this Saturday. So we are now up to 20 areas open in Europe.
The snowfall forecast in the alps at the weekend was more patchy than predicted with most of the glaciers not seeing as much as hoped, whilst some, most notably the Austrian Dachstein, reported 60cm of fresh snow - rather more than the most optimistic forecast.
Across the Atlantic, the first ski area to open in California, Mt Rose, has opened an easy run using snow-making - with a big snow storm forecast. The start of November sees more high areas in Colorado and elsewhere, such as Banff in Alberta, scheduled to open so the mass start of the north American ski season looks to be just days away.
In the Forecast
There is currently some significant and widespread snowfall forecast for the Alps for the end of the weekend and into next week.
The forecast has been quite dynamic for the past few days, so details will change but heavy snow does look likely to moderate altitudes across a good part of the northern and central French, Italian and Swiss Alps with lesser (but useful) falls to the East (Austria).
We expect the main event to be Sunday night into Monday but with snow continuing for a few days in some areas (Aosta valley and Dolomites potentially).
See when and where it's going to snow...
Always check local conditions and resort opening times directly before travelling!
Re-publication :- our Snow Report Summary, being the text above this line, 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.
NORTHERN HEMISPHERE
Austria
Austria continues to have the most ski areas open in the world at present, as it has for the past two months. It may lose its title to the US in the next week, however. Currently though there's a choice of nine areas open; eight glacier centres and Kitzbuhel, which opened a second small area at the weekend including its famous Hahnenkamm slopes. It uses snow stockpiled from last season to make the run but there's been fresh snow too. In fact Austria got the best of last weekend's snow with the Dachstein glacier reporting 60cm/2 feet of fresh cover – much more than anywhere else. Another Austrian glacier, Hintertux, is also claiming a world's best – it has the most terrain open in the world at present with nearly double its nearest competitor and around 35km of runs open. It isn't all good news though, the first Men's FIS World Cup Races of the season due to be staged on the glacier at Solden on Sunday were cancelled due to strong wins. The women's event did take place successfully the previous day however. The other glacier resorts currently open are the Molltal, Stubai, Kaunertal, Kitzsteinhorn and Pitztal ski areas.
France
Conditions remain fairly challenging for skiers who want to hit the slopes in France at the start of November. Tignes remains the only ski area open and there's a 5-30cm base here and five runs to choose from on the Grande Motte glacier – a blue, a black and three reds. Val Thorens, due to open in just over a fortnight on Saturday the 18th November, reported sub-zero temperatures on 1st November though and says snowmaking is underway, so hopefully things are looking good for the build up to the mass opening of French resorts from then on. Last year there were of course big snowfalls in the French Alps in early November leading to ski areas including Courchevel and Alpe d'Huez opening early, so fingers are crossed that history repeats itself.
Italy
It's the last week of an eventful 2017 season for Passo Stelvio, one of the very few northern hemisphere ski areas that only operates during a calendar year rather than seeing its season go from one year to the next through winter. The centre is open from early spring to mid-Autumn but this year had an unprecedented fortnight's closure in August when the very hot summer melted away snow cover. Currently though it's claiming the deepest base in the Alps at 1.5m. Cervinia, which had been open weekends from mid-October has stepped in to the breech and is now open permanently until next May. Val Senales is also open.
Switzerland
Switzerland seems to be fast catching up with Austria in terms of ski areas open. Although Laax, which had eyed an end-of-October opening, decided not to open at the weekend, Glacier 3000 between Gstaad and les Diablerets did open, and it will be joined by a run up on the Parsenn area at Davos next weekend – taking the Swiss-areas-open tally to six, the second-most in the world at present. Laax too is now saying it will open on Saturday, although it's not yet certain about Sunday. Engelberg, the Diavolezza glacier near St Moritz along with Saas Fee and Zermatt are all also open and had a little fresh snow at the weekend. Glacier 3000 reports the deepest snowbase in the country at present at 1m, whilst Saas Fee and Zermatt each say they have 18km of runs open, the two biggest skiable areas in Switzerland at the start of November.
Scandinavia
There's been a good amount of fresh snow on the slopes of Scandinavia. Bjorli in Northern Norway posted images of a snowy desert there after 40cm of fresh snow fell last week, and Ruka in Finnish Lapland, which opened last month using snow saved from last season, now has a fresh white coat on top of that old snow and will open more trails this weekend. After its long spring, summer and early autumn opening, Galdhoppigen snow field in Norway, will close on Monday. It's still reporting the deepest snow base in the world at present though at 3 metres. Geilo is still open in Norway though.
North America
The first bit of big news in North America over the past week was the unexpected opening of Mt Rose by Lake Tahoe in California after the centre's snowmakers created snow on one of the centre's easy runs, allowing it to open at the weekend. It joins already-open Arapahoe Basin and Loveland in Colorado and Timberline on Mt Hood in Oregon which all opened earlier in October.
Secondly, a big snowstorm is now forecast to sweep across much of the West of the country - on the ski slopes at least – later this week.
The next week or two should see more high altitude US ski areas open, particularly in Colorado as well as the first Canadian ski areas opening for 17-18. In fact by the end of next week there should be more ski areas open in the US, all being well, than in any other country, after two months of Austrian dominance.