[Picture updated as it snowed some more... Mr.Admin]
Recent heavy snowfalls and cold weather for snowmaking has led to more than 30 ski areas in eight northern hemisphere nations already opening for their 23-0-24 season and a dozen or so more, including many big names, plan to copen for theirs over the coming Thursday – Saturday, later this week.
In Austria all seven remaining glacier ski areas have opened, the latest, Molltal in Carinthia has, this morning (Sunday 5th November). The first non-glacier ski areas are expected to start opening in a fortnight's time with Obergurgl and Obertauern among them, however despite having one of the lowest ski areas of a major resort in the Alps, peaking at about 2,000m, Kitzbühel says it will open for the season this coming weekend. It used snow farming techniques to open in October in the years up to the pandemic.
In Switzerland, Davis is expected to open its Parsenn area at the weekend and Arosa should open too, while Verbier has posted images of slopes being groomed and says it will announce its opening day early in the week. The Glacier 3000 area near Gstaad said it had planned to open this weekend but has delayed to this coming Thursday 9th November due to heavy snowfall.
Across the Atlantic, Breckenridge, Mammoth and Vail are all expected to open on Friday with Marmor Basin at Jasper in Canada aiming for the day before.
About 30 ski areas have already opened for the 23-24 season, more than half of them in the last seven days. Theu include Keystone and Killington in the US; Lake Louise in Canada; Murren, St Moritz (Diavolezza Glacier), Saas Fee and Zermatt in Switzerland; Cervinia in Italy; Levi and Ruka in Finland and Kaprun and Solden in Austria. There's nowhere currently open in France.