Iceland's leading ski area of Bláfjall has closed its 60th season with a record number of skier visits, hitting 100,000 for the first time, during its closing weekend.
The resort's previous record of 84,600 was set 15 years ago in the winter of 2008-9. The resort's operators are putting the jump in skier numbers down, not to a particularly good winter for snowfall, but investment in snowmaking and improved lifts over the past few years.
"The municipalities that operate the ski areas began a new development plan two years ago when two new chairlifts installed and snowmaking added to parts of the ski area last autumn," a spokesperson said, continuing, "The first 12 days of opening were all thanks to snowmaking. They were important days like the days between Christmas and New Year. Then the snowmaking helped us get back on track after the warm weather that came in early January."
"The new chairlifts and their greater transport capacity were another big factor. Skiers have realized that even though it's a great day in the mountains that they can still come and manage to ski a lot, since there are almost no queues for the chairlifts. So skiers can make many trips on days when previously they would have spent a lot of their time stood in queues."