30th October, 2014
Re-publication :- our Snow Report Summary, being the text up to "The Alps", is free to re-publish, but must be clearly credited to www.J2ski.com with text including "J2Ski Snow Report" linked to this page - thank you.
Snow Report Summary
Last week's early snows brought a flurry of excitement that, like the snow, was short-lived except at altitude where autumn snow depths have been boosted and some excellent skiing has been had!
This Week's Headlines
- Up to a metre of fresh snow in the Alps after last weekend's deluge.
- Fresh snow in the Colorado Rockies, but still only one resort open.
- Second ski area opens in Scandinavia.
- Only one ski area still operating in the southern hemisphere for 2014 ski season.
- US ski team reschedule training plans after Colorado resort training base delays opening.
The snowfalls in the Alps at the end of last week have brought remarkable skiing conditions to the 18 glacier ski areas open in the region this week. Temperatures rose, winds eased and the sun came out giving near perfect on piste conditions, although some complained it got too warm too fast so any powder was quickly gone. But then it is October.
Elsewhere another ski area opened in Scandinavia and the first Canadian resort to open for 2014-15, as well as a second Colorado centre, are scheduled to open on Halloween for the coming weekend.
South of the equator one ski area in New Zealand is heroically keeping their 2014 ski season going, the last resort still standing in the southern hemisphere...
In the forecast
The models are hinting pretty strongly at a further episode of snow early next week, with some significant falls and seasonal temperatures looking likely to bless the North and West of the Alpine regions. Watch this space...
The Alps
Austria
It's still a few weeks until Austria's first non-glacier ski areas (Obergurgl and Obertauern) are due to open but conditions on the eight glaciers that are open are excellent for the start of November after the heavy snow a week ago was followed by clear, sunny weather and temperatures on the mountains staying at around zero. Some areas reported a metre of fresh snow.
Hintertux is looking particularly good with its base up to to 185cm and 40km of runs open already and a full 1100m of vertical skiable (very unusual for October) as well as the main terrain park open. It's looking good at Pitztal, Kaunertal, on the Kitzsteinhorn (which reported 80cm of fresh snow last week) above Kaprun and at Solden, which staged the first worlds Cup races of the season last weekend too. Two runs are open at the Dachstein glacier, which says it has a 70cm base of powder and the Molltal glacier's base has reached 2.3m with three runs open.
The Stubai has nine runs and just over 20km of slopes open in total, also reporting powder conditions. It's 'capacity measure' – a new calculation based on how busy it is, has shot up from below 10% to over 50% at times since the new snowfall.
France
For the second weekend, two glaciers are open in France as Les 2 Alpes completes its annual autumn festival week opening, well timed this year thanks to all the snowfall just before the week began. After Sunday it's back to just Tignes being open for three weeks until Val Thorens joins in and the mass resort openings begin. In the meantime the glacier at Tignes looks great, with freestylers training there this week in the half pipe.
Italy
In Italy Cervinia – which has been open the past few weekends – begins full time opening from this weekend, although weekends will continue to be the focus through November with different themed events being staged to help attract more early season visitors. It joins Val Senales and Passo Stelvio which have both been open for some months and are both looking particularly good this week having benefitted from the same snowfall as other parts of the Alps. Val Senales reports snow depths at 115cm having received 60cm of fresh snow on the 23rd and 24th of October last week.
Switzerland
Switzerland now has five ski areas open with Les Diablerets (Glacier 3000) and Engelberg joining the three already open areas last weekend. Placing it second to Austria in terms of number of areas open. Like Austria it's centres had healthy snowfalls a week ago too, building bases and greatly improving conditions. Zermatt, which is open year round anyway, has just re-opened the Furggsattel glacier lift as well as the Gandegg and Testa 1 ski lifts meaning there now 23 kilometres of piste open on Europe's highest lift-served slopes.
Scandinavia
In Scandinavia a second resort has opened in Finnish Lapland, the country's largest, Levi, which is due to stage World Cup bracing in a fortnight's time, opened two runs earlier this week. It joins Ruka which opened a fortnight ago and now has six trails open for early visitors to choose from.
North America
Canada
Canada's ski season is due to begin this Friday with Mt Norquay near Banff in Alberta scheduled to open its runs for Halloween - if there's enough snow. That's not been announced for certain at publication time although snowmaking got underway last week with natural snow lying too, so it's looking quite promising.
USA
In the USA Arapahoe Basin which has been open the past fortnight largely thanks to its impressive snowmaking efforts, has had three inches (8cm) of fresh natural snowfall to boost conditions. Along with A Basin and Timberline Lodge ski area on Mt Hood in Oregon, a third US are is scheduled to open for Halloween – Keystone. So far it's not clear if there will be snow there – they're keeping mum on their social media channels and website and it has been fairly warm and sunny, but like A Basin and Loveland (also expected to open any day) this is one of the 20 highest resorts in the world so a limited slope opening could indeed be imminent. However a fourth US ski area that had planned to open, Copper Mountain, has said it will delay opening by a week to November 6th because warmer weather has limited snowmaking operations. His is reported by the Denver Post to be bad news for the US ski team who were due to begin training there at the weekend.
Southern Hemisphere
After Whakapapa closed at the weekend, only one Southern Hemisphere ski area is open for 'Snovember' – Turoa, also on Mt Ruapehu, which will be open for the next two weekends before finally calling it a day At the end of Sunday the 9th. The base has dropped there by more than a foot in the last seven days to 145cm but it's still looking good for a few more turns yet with generally good spring skiing conditions.