Following the decision by Alpe d'Huez, Aspen, Whistler and Kitzbuhel to open several weeks early last weekend, more resorts have announced they'll be running the lifts earlier than expected this coming weekend.
French ski areas seem to dominate the list of unexpectedly early openings, thanks to the large snowfalls – typically of at least several feet – over the past week.
Courchevel has made the most exciting announcement – saying that it will run its lifts free-of-charge on Saturday (only) before closing again until the resort's originally planned opening date of December 7th. La Clusaz has announced that it will open early for the season this weekend. Val Thorens was scheduled to open for the season this Saturday anyway.
The first resort to open in the Pyrenees may be Baqueira Beret in Spain, it will open on Saturday too, a week earlier than planned, following 62sm of snow over five days up to Tuesday.