Italy's huge Dolomiti Superski area will kick-off its 2018-19 winter season tomorrow, Friday 30 November, with around 150km of terrain, served by 70 lifts, a little more than 10% of its capacity, open this weekend.
8 of the region's 12 skiing areas will offer at least some skiing although the amount available for this opening weekend differs greatly.
Skiing will be offered at Cortina d'Ampezzo, Kronplatz, Alta Badia, Val Gardena, Carezza, Arabba, Fiemme/Obereggen and 3 Zinnen Dolomites.
Kronplatz will open the biggest area with 45km of runs and 3 Zinnen Dolomites just a little less with 43km.
Fiemme/Obereggen will have 26km of runs, Alta Badia 25km but all the other areas will only be opening less than 4 kilometres each and Val Gardena reports only a 200 metre long run!
Most of the areas will be opening runs thanks to snowmaking, with maximum slope depths of 20cm The region reports that their modern snowmaking systems which cover almost all of the 1,200km of slopes, have been updated with another 25 million Euro spend during the summer.
In addition around 60 million Euros has been spent on new lifts.
The second wave of openings in the rest of the 12 valleys of Dolomiti Superski will follow on 6-7 December.