Zermatt - always open.
May 20th isn't usually the biggest day in the skiing year, and perhaps it's a tad tenuous to claim is this year. But although this is the low point of 2011 in terms of the number of ski areas open worldwide – less than 30 in fact, or 0.5% of the world total - the stars seem to be in alignment for it to be a significant date for the snowsports obsessed.
First up it'll be the first day this year that we have lift-accessed skiing in both the north and south sides of the planet, as Australia's biggest resort, Perisher plans to open a couple of runs, with all lift ticket sales going to charity, to capitalise on a foot of fresh snow last week followed by cold weather for snowmaking this. Its opening is three weeks ahead of the usual date, and even that is normally optimistic.
Secondly, there's powder snow to be had at most of the 25 or so ski areas that are still operating in the Alps and Western North America. Glaciers in Austria and Switzerland have reported up to 30cm of fresh snow in the past week, at Lake Tahoe the biggest dumps are 50cm.
Thirdly it's the start of the 'ski under the midnight sun' at Riksgransen in the Arctic Circle as the resort moves in to 24 hour daylight. It'll run its lifts through to the small hours on Fridays and Tuesdays each week for the rest of the season.
Still open options in North America, according to skiinfo.co.uk, include Squaw Valley, Mammoth and Donner pass in California; A Basin in Colorado, Mt Bachelor and Timberline in Oregon; Crystal mountain in Washington State and Snowbird in Utah. North of the border we have Whistler and Banff (Last weekend of season for Sunshine) in Canada with Grouse mountain above Vancouver planning to re-open through June after a maintenance shut down – the snow is lying 6m/20 feet deep there. In Europe look out for Dachstein, Tux, Kaunertal and Stubai (Last weekend) in Austria; Engelberg, Grstaad, St Morirtz and Zermatt in Switzerland; the Presena glacier in Italy, three small summer ski centres in Norway and Ruka in Finland has one run open.