Ski areas have opened in Europe, North America, South America and Australia today in an annual event few besides J2ski seem to notice.
It's the start of the summer ski season on the glaciers of Whistler in Canada, North America and les 2 Alpes in France, Europe, whilst the 2015 winter season kicks off in South America and more areas open in New Zealand.
Ski areas are also open already in Lesotho and South Africa in Africa, meaning that ski lift accessed winter sports are currently possible on at least five continents.
Conditions on the slopes vary dramatically however. African ski areas have had fresh snow this week and are in good shape, but New Zealand has been the snowstorm story of the last seven days with accumulations of up to a metre of fresh snow reported (Treble Cone pictured above)
South America, by contrast, has so far had a dire start to the season with almost no natural snowfall – a similar situation to the one that Pacific US states found themselves in in the Northern Hemisphere's winter a few months ago. The only skiing available is on machine made snow.
In the northern hemisphere glaciers are posting pictures of pristine snow slopes (les 2 Alpes pictured this week below), looking good for summer 2015.
