The French 2016-17 ski season will officially kick off this Saturday with Tignes re-opening for snowsports on the Grand Motte glacier. It will be the only ski area open in France until late November, except for a week long opening of the Les 2 Alpes glacier in late October.
On the other side of Switzerland, the Stubai glacier in Austria has also announced it will be operating from Friday with the Gamsgartenbahn lift operating to serve skiing on the Daunferner glacier daily from 8am to 3pm.
However the Stubai's new 3S Eisgratbahn lift, The Alps' longest 3S-lift yet, is still three more weeks away. The new lift is scheduled to take up operation on 22 October 2016 for the first time.
This new lift will bring skiers up from the new Eisgrat base station at 1,796m to an altitude of 2,900m in just 11 minutes.
Further north at Geilo in Norway will also open on Friday. Unlike the other two centres there's no glacier here but the centre stockpiled a huge amount of snow at the end of last season and has now spread it on a kilometre long ski run.