June 21st is quite a significant day on the world calendar for ski area openings.
Most South American ski areas that have not already opened are scheduled to open on Saturday – the shortest day of the year in the southern hemisphere. Snowfall through the first half of May has been excellent across the continent and many areas opened early already, but some, like Valle Nevado, having partially opened two weeks ago, will be fully open from this weekend.
In the Northern Hemisphere, where this Saturday both Les 2Alpes and Tignes are due to open for glacier skiing in France, with their summer ski seasons lasting through to August.
Starting this weekend at Tignes (pictured above), the funicular, cable car and Vanoise chairlift can be used again to access the Glacier, Descente, Rimaye, Face, Rabotch and Dahu pistes. The open area will expand on July 5th with the whole glacier area open, including the snowpark.
As we reported yesterday Glencoe in Scotland will briefly run its lifts for midsummer and they're skiing at midnight under the midnight sun for midsummer at Riksgransen in Sweden.
Meanwhile across the Atlantic it's the last Saturday of the nearly nine month ski season at Arapahoe Basin in Colorado which closes Sunday, leaving only Timberline in Oregon still open.
It's not all good news in the southern hemisphere however as The Remarkables in New Zealand, which was due to open tomorrow, has delayed doing so due to weather conditions.