The next week or two will see the first of the big non-glacier ski areas begin opening for winter 2011-12.
Around two dozen areas are already open but they're generally either small high areas in North American, bigger areas with limited terrain or small glacier areas.
Tomorrow (November 4th) will see Copper Mountain in Colorado open, then on Saturday, November 5th, Lake Louise is due to join the party and on the 10th, Mammoth Mountain in California – which only closed last July, will be next. Breckenridge begins its 50th anniversary season next day, November 11th.
In Europe Obergurgl in Austria (the country's highest village), as well as Beatles' favourite resort Obertauern (featured in the movie 'Help') and Val Thorens in France (Europe's highest resort) will open in the middle of November, both with snow guarantees, the latter guaranteeing doorstep skiing from day one for it's 40th anniversary season.
The season seems to be playing out reasonably normally at this early stage in most areas of the world except 'unseasonably warm' Scandinavia where no resort has been open yet and Ruka in Finland for example, which has opened in October every year for the past decade, didn't manage to this year and remains closed. This is a potential worry with world Cup events scheduled for the as area within the month.