Arapahoe Basin, Colorado, USA, 80 years and counting, and they're open!
Arapahoe Basin is the first ski area in North America to open for the 26-27 season while Japan's Yeti ski area and fourteen Alpine glacier areas across Austria, Italy and Switzerland are already operating on natural and machine-made snow.
The Snow Headlines - October 22nd
- Fourteen glacier ski areas are now open in the Alps, across Austria, Italy and Switzerland.
- North America's season starts with the first resorts open in Colorado.
- Japan's season gets underway with the Yeti ski area opening on machine-made snow.
- Canada's season start is just one week away.
- Ski areas remain open in the Southern Hemisphere, with summer still a month away.
Snow in the forecast this weekend for Europe, Japan and North America (and a LOT in Alaska!).
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World Overview
There was excitement in the US on Wednesday as Arapahoe Basin won the race to be the first resort in the country, and indeed North America, to open for the season. It announced its plans just four hours before opening, to prevent any rival from sneaking in first. This followed multiple storms that delivered significant snow across the Rockies, with temperatures dropping enough for snowmaking.
Elsewhere, major US and Canadian resorts are now accelerating snowmaking ahead of early-November opening dates, with high-altitude resorts in Colorado hoping to get going before the end of October.
In Europe, the Alps are experiencing another week of mild conditions and plenty of sunshine, following some snowfall on high terrain last weekend. However, Murren still plans to open this weekend. Conditions are colder in Scandinavia, with snow showers reported. There are now nearly 20 ski areas open across six countries.
Japan's 2026 season got underway, of sorts, with the small Yeti ski area in the shadow of Mount Fuji opening with its traditional free skiing for those arriving in fancy dress. It uses all-weather, machine-made snow to create a piste.
The 2026 Southern Hemisphere season continues in New Zealand and Chile, despite the start of meteorological summer there now only a month away. In Chile, Valle Nevado plans to keep going for one more week, and was joined last weekend by re-opening neighbour El Colorado, both reporting further fresh snowfall. In New Zealand, only Turoa, on Mount Ruapehu on the North Island, was open last weekend, extending its season.
Europe
Austria
After last week's snowfall, it has been a largely dry and sunny week in Austria, with the freezing point mostly between 2,000 metres/6,562 feet and 3,000 metres/9,843 feet, although it crept higher at the weekend.
Six glacier ski areas remain open, the most of any country in the world at present, with Solden also boasting the most terrain open at any resort worldwide, around 30km/19 miles of slopes. It staged the opening World Cup alpine skiing races of the 2026-27 season at the weekend. The Stubai, Kitzsteinhorn, Pitztal, Hintertux and Kaunertal glaciers are also open, albeit with fairly thin cover and limited terrain (most offering less than 50cm/20 inches of snow and 10km/6 miles of slopes respectively).
A seventh Austrian glacier area, Carinthia's Molltal, is expected to start its 2026-27 season this weekend, with conditions currently forecast to remain mostly dry and sunny.
France
Recent snowfall across the French Alps has provided an encouraging picture ahead of the start of the season, with the heaviest accumulations reported at higher elevations. Resorts above around 1,600 metres/5,249 feet have, at times, seen snow reaching all the way down to village level.
France is set to be the last of the major European ski nations to begin its 2026-27 winter season, with Tignes and Val Thorens currently scheduled to open on 21 November, and more, including Les Deux Alpes and Montgenèvre, opening the following, final weekend of the month.
There's an outside chance of an earlier start if substantial pre-season snowfall creates favourable conditions in the next few weeks; this has happened in a few years this century, but so far there's not much sign of it.
Italy
Cervinia kicked off its 2026-27 ski season as scheduled at the weekend. The resort, which shares the extensive Matterhorn ski area with its Swiss counterpart Zermatt, joins Passo Stelvio and Val Senales as the three Italian ski destinations currently open to skiers, offering more terrain than the other two combined, albeit still not a huge amount.
Recent snowfall has freshened glacier areas across the Alps, with all three resorts reporting new snow this week. Snow has also been reported in the Dolomites in north-eastern Italy. A fourth area, Sulden, had planned to open this weekend but has now delayed by a week.
Switzerland
Switzerland now has four centres open and hopes to reach six by Saturday, mostly thanks to its glaciers.
Adelboden, however, has created a kilometre/0.6-mile-long run through snow farming. Murren is expected to open using a similar technique this weekend.
Zermatt opened more runs at the weekend, but local reports indicated temperatures remained well above freezing, even above 3,000m/9,843ft in the afternoons, although the past 48 hours have seen the freezing point drop to lower levels. Saas-Fee is also open, with the Diavolezza glacier near St Moritz opening at weekends. The Titlis Glacier near Engelberg, which had first been expected to open at the start of the month but has kept delaying through October, is now expected to open for Halloween.
Scandinavia
Scandinavia continues to offer limited but reliable early-season skiing, with four areas currently operating.
Conditions have remained cold and wintry over the past week, while daylight hours are rapidly shrinking across the far north (the last sunset until 2027 was reported this week at Svalbard), where most open slopes are located.
Sweden's Idre Fjäll and Finland's Levi and Ruka are each offering around 1km to 2km/0.6 to 1.2 miles of runs created through snow farming last winter's snow, supplemented at times by fresh snowmaking and some natural snowfall on higher ground. Norway's Galdhøpiggen Glacier summer ski area, which had only been operating for race-team training, has now opened to the public, with three more weeks left of its 2026 run, which began last spring.
North America
Canada
Despite warnings that the Super El Niño, expected to peak in late November/early December, could negatively impact Canadian ski areas - with both the East and West coasts forecast to see warmer-than-average temperatures and slightly less precipitation - early signs are promising and fairly normal.
The past week has brought more snowfall to the Canadian Rockies and down to lower levels as winter draws nearer. Nowhere is open yet, as planned, but two of Banff's three areas, Sunshine and Lake Louise, plan to kick off their 2026-27 seasons next week.
Opening will be an hour later than usual, as Alberta has voted to abandon the clock-change daylight saving, meaning resorts won't open until nearer 10am daily due to the now-darker mornings. They will, however, stay open an hour later in the evenings.
USA
Tension built all week in the US, as a return of colder temperatures and some natural snowfall to the Rockies raised anticipation that somewhere - most likely Colorado's Arapahoe Basin, Keystone or Wolf Creek - would be the first in the country, and North America, to open for the season.
In the end, as is often the case, it was Arapahoe Basin that announced early on Wednesday morning that it would open later that day. It has two lifts running and a season ahead likely to stretch to at least seven, perhaps eight, months. Keystone announced later in the day that it would open on Friday.
Snowfall has been reported after a milder spell in the Rockies (Wolf Creek reported the most, with 50cm/20 inches), the Sierras and the Pacific Northwest, but the East Coast has seen above-average temperatures, although some resorts have still managed a little overnight snowmaking, at least for their social media posts. Beyond the first openers, more Colorado areas, Breckenridge and Copper, are planning to open next weekend on 6 November.