Although we're into the final quarter of the season for most of the world's ski resorts, its only now that the world's largest ski areas are nearing full operations.
To be clear, most of Europe's largest ski areas have had 85-95% of their slopes open since before Christmas, and although the snow arrived late, the same is true of most North American resorts since early in the New Year.
But the world's largest ski area, the 3 Valleys, has been about 95% open with a little over 550km of its slopes operational most of the winter. The biggest area open in the world but not the full 600km.
Across the Atlantic North America's largest, Whistler Blackcomb, had been at 70-80% open for much of 2024, until now, because of poor snowfalls and warm temperatures in the Pacific Northwest corner of North America linked to the strong El Nino system this winter. It's now almost 100% open, it's base doubled to around 3m after more than 2 metres of snowfall in 10 days, as is the biggest ski area in the US, Park City in Utah, pictured above.
Big snowfalls in the Alps over the past three weeks has allowed the 3 Valleys to open the most terrain of the season to date this week though. It's now at 97% with an estimated 580km+ of slopes open.
The second largest ski area in Europe, the Portes du Soleil, which includes some low-lying terrain around Les Gets, Morzine and other traditional village resorts also remains more than 90% open.