The 20-21 ski season has got underway in Finland with two of the country's largest ski areas opening at the weekend.
Levi and Ruka both used snow farming techniques - saving the snow under cover from the previous summer then spreading it back out on the slopes - to create a few kilometres of ski slope plus terrain park features.
It's the first lift-served skiing in Finland since the spring lockdown, although its resorts were among the last to join the mass closure.
The centres are aiming to stay open to May 2021 for a seven month ski season. Snow-farming is being employed by more and more ski areas worldwide. The Norwegian ski area Kvitfjell has already opened in late September using it, although it is currently being used by the Norwegian ski squad for exclusive training. Idre Fjall in Sweden, pictured below at the weekend, aims to open in the same way on October 16th.
Kitzbuhel aims to open some terrain in a fortnight's time using the same technique to deliver a 200 day ski season to May 2021 and be the first resort without glacier skiing to open in the Alps.
