J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by admin

Glad to hear you're sorted Kevin - send us a report when you're there!

I'll lock this thread.

As October draws to a close, here's our roundup of the world's snow.


Snow on the peaks this morning; Mont Blanc seen from Les Arcs.

This Week's Snow Headlines
- Switzerland's Arosa Lenzerheide and Glacier 3000 opening this weekend.
- First snow of 16-17 pre-season in New England, as Killington Vermont opens.
- Most expensive single ski lift yet opens at Austrian glacier resort.
- More than five feet of snow reported so far this autumn at some (unopen) ski areas in BC.
- Ski areas in 5 countries (Austria, France, Italy, Switzerland and the USA) open for ski.
- Cervinia open full time from next weekend on.

The number of ski areas opening for the northern hemisphere's 2016-17 ski season continues to gather pace. The season kicked off in North America last weekend with, first, Arapahoe Basin in Colorado last Friday then Killington in Vermont opening on Tuesday after a weekend of snow there.

In the Alps too the first non-glacier ski areas have opened (along with more glacier areas), headed up by Kitzbuhel at the weekend and more French, Italian and Swiss glacier areas have joined the list meaning more than 20 areas are now open in Europe too, with more set to follow this weekend.

Snow has also been reported across mountainous areas in Asia with the mountains of Hokkaido in northern Japan turning white. In the southern hemisphere the one ski resort still operating has closed one of its two ski hills for the season but promised the other will remain open in to 'Snow-vember.'

In the Forecast

Nothing major in the forecast for The Alps for the coming week; it's cool in the East whilst the West and Northern Alps are going to have a warm few days before temperatures drop going into November.

Some light snow showers at altitude, but generally clear and settled weather for the next week or so.

Re-publication :- our Snow Report Summary, being the text above this line, 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.

The Alps
Austria
Austria continues to be the country where it's all happening in terms of October snowsport, with the Tirol the province where most of the action is – it has six of the nine open Austrian areas. That means Tirol alone has more ski areas open than any country besides the one it's in!

Last weekend saw Kitzbuhel, the first non-glacier-resort using this autumn's snow to open (non-glacier resorts are open in Scandinavia but they're using recycled snow saved from last spring!). It offered skiing on its Pass Thurn slopes. It's closed during the week but will re-open permanently for the season from next weekend. Also last weekend the new 3S cable car opened at the Stubai glacier, a £52m queue-gobbling lift that cuts ascent times to only 11 minutes. There hasn't been any fresh snow reported for a week but conditions are still 'good for the time of year' thanks to the 15-30cm of snow that feel in the middle of last week.

France
There was a bit of excitement at Tignes at the start of the week with the resort reporting 30cm of snow in 24 hours from Monday to Tuesday. Looking at the web cam images this tally seemed slightly optimistic but there was certainly some fresh snow. That's good news as the official base depth remains at 25cm on the Grand Motte glacier, the thinnest at this time of year for five seasons. A second French glacier ski area is open for this week and coming weekend only, Les 2 Alpes. It closes on Monday for five weeks after that so there'll be three more weeks with only Tignes open until Val Thorens and others start to open for the beginning of the main ski season.

Italy
Cervinia, which has been open the past few weekends, will join Passo Stelvio and Val Senales again this weekend and then stay open permanently until next May, offering cross-border snowsports to Zermatt (at a lower cost than if you buy your ticket on the Zermatt side!). It may be the last weekend of the spring-autumn ski season at Passo Stelvio; it tends to wind down at the end of October as other resorts begin to open for the 'regular' season.

Switzerland
Swiss glacier ski areas beyond the two stalwarts of Saas Fee and Zermatt have been talking about opening from mid-October but then have decided to delay. However the Diavolezza glacier at St Moritz and Engelberg opened last weekend, the latter posting a 40cm base number on its Titlis glacier. They're due to be joined by Glacier 3000 above Les Diablerets and near to Gstaad this weekend along with the more novelty appearance in our October openings list of Arosa Lenzerheide which is reported to have invested in a special plus temps snowmaking machine in order to open a limited area early, all being well. So that should be six Swiss area open by Saturday.

Scandinavia
The last weekend of the summer-autumn ski season is nigh at Galdhoppigen ski centre in Norway, the country's highest and one of three summer glacier destinations there. It still has a healthy snowpack. Other resorts are close to opening as temperatures are low enough for the snowmaking cannons to fire up. The two that have already opened using snow stockpiled from last season – Geilo in Norway and Ruka in Lapland, Finland have both been boosting up their bases with overnight snowmaking.

North America
Canada
The season has still not officially started in Canada. Resorts around Calgary including Nakiska and Sunshine are hoping to open in the first and second weeks of November. However there have been impressive pre-season snowfalls reported in BC, perhaps the most in the world so far. Revelstoke says it has had 1.6m of snowfall this autumn and has a 60cm base with more than six weeks until the season is due to start there. Other BC resorts are looking similarly snowy.

USA
Ski areas are now open on both the East and West coasts of the US as Killington in Vermont joined Arapahoe Basin in Colorado in opening in the past week. A-Basin was first last Thursday, Killington followed on Tuesday after a weekend of heavy snow that left some East coast areas claiming more than a foot/30cm of snow had fallen. Killington report five-and-a-half inches but with a bit of snowmaking on top were able to open. Arapahoe Basin also used a mix of machine made and natural snow but has the advantage of being one of the 20 highest ski areas in the world.

Southern Hemisphere
Ruapehu in New Zealand, the only ski area still operating in the southern hemisphere, has closed Whakapapa (one of its two ski areas) despite it still having a 2.2m base. The other area, Turoa, will be open at least to November 6th and has a 1.7m base still with fresh snow reported to be still falling. The terrain now available is reported to be only good for intermediate to advanced level skiers and boarders.

dobby wrote:Macben. It'll be a howling gale and peeing with rain.

No, that'll be England! :lol:

Macben wrote:Hi could you please let me know the probability of snow in Val Thorens in the first week of December

See the above answer. It's highly likely (based only on the fact that's the highest ski area in Europe) but check the forecasts from mid-November onward; we won't know before that.

tameware wrote:What's a good source for long range snow forecasts?

There isn't one - or we'd use it! 8)

In January you'd have to be pretty unlucky to have no snow, but your best bet - if you are worried - is to wait until nearer the time before booking.

ANY forecast beyond a week is unreliable and likely to change, and anyone who tells you or claims otherwise is simply wrong.

Follow our forecasts here, and read our weekly round-up; we try and give an overview of any major trends in the models.

But Switzerland in January? Yep, you'll be alright. :D

More resort openings, and more early snows to report this week...


Les 2 Alpes this morning, ready to open this weekend!

This Week's Snow Headlines
- Swiss glacier ski areas push back opening dates.
- 10cm of fresh powder at the only southern hemisphere ski centre still open.
- Les 2 Alpes to join Tignes for one week only as the second French glacier area open.
- Major new access lifts opening to the Stubai glacier.
- Kitzbuhel targets early opening this weekend.
- World Cup ski season gets underway this weekend in Solden.
- Arapahoe Basin opens tomorrow.
- 75cm for Whistler last weekend, who plan to open 24th November.

The 2016-17 continues to gather pace, even though there are still fewer than 20 areas open worldwide!
The big news of the past week were significant snowfalls in Western North America and the Swiss Alps, but the big news for the week ahead is mostly in Austria, home to around half of the currently open areas, where the first non-glacier resort in Europe (maybe the world if nowhere in Colorado opens sooner), also one of the lowest ski areas in the Alps, hopes to open this weekend.

In addition a hugely expensive new lift to access the Stubai glacier is due to open and, at a third Austrian glacier area, the 2016-17 World Cup season is due to kick off.

Down in the southern hemisphere the 2016 season continues at just one remaining area and there's been fresh snow in New Zealand.

In the Forecast

Less snow for Europe than last week, with a clearer few days coming up and temperatures rising a little into next week before cooling again. That said, there will be some snow showers around this weekend with some heavy localized snowfall likely in the Eastern Alps (Austria, etc.); conditions on the open glaciers likely to be excellent!

Win Tickets to the London Ski Show

We're running a quick competition to give away three pairs of tickets to next week's London Ski and Snowboard Show. All you have to do is post a picture - taken by you on a recent ski trip - to our Ski Show Competition thread. The best three pictures, as selected by the J2Ski Editorial Team on Monday, will each win a pair of tickets to the show.

Re-publication :- our Snow Report Summary, being the text above this line, 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.

The Alps
Austria
Things are looking exciting on the glacier slopes of Austria this week with the 2016-17 World Cup tour getting underway at Sölden whilst the nearby Stubai glacier unveils its state-of-the-art new high speed, high capacity access lifts from the valley to the glacier built over the past two summers at a vast cost! And in a third piece of Austrian news Kitzbuhel hopes to open some terrain this weekend too thanks to some clever snowmaking.

The FIS announced a positive snow control for Sölden for the Audi FIS Ski World Cup races to take place this weekend on 22nd - 23rd October at the end of last week.

Kitzbuhel was forecast, about 10 years ago, to be a likely early victim of climate change in a UN report and has subsequently gone out of its way to open earlier and earlier each season so statistically it can post ever longer seasons rather than shorter ones. But that may all be coincidence.

Six other Austrian glaciers remain open with some fresh snow over the past few days, meaning around half of the world's currently open ski areas are in Austria. These include the Dachstein, Hintertux, Kaunertal, Kitzsteinhorn, Molltal and Pitztal glaciers.

Base depths on the glaciers are between 50 and 230cm and moset have had 5-20cm of fresh snow this week.

France
Tignes continues to be the only ski area open in France at present, but that changes at the weekend for one week (and two weekends) as Les 2 Alpes re-opens for its traditional October-school-holiday week. This sees what it claims is Europe's largest glacier ski area open with lots of competitions, festivals and new season gear tests. It closes again on 1st November until re-opening a month later for the winter season. Tignes currently has a foot of snow on its glacier and four runs open, conditions are said to be 'very good' Les 2 Alpes won't say what their conditions are like until opening day but presumably they're fairly similar!

Italy
Passo Stelvio and Val Senales remain the two open glacier ski areas in Italy. Like Austria they've had some fresh snow and bases are in the 50-120cm bracket. A third Italian area, Cervinia, re-opened last weekend and will re-open this coming weekend too before going full-time from the 29th, the weekend after. It provides cross-border glacier skiing with Zermatt on the Swiss side of the border.

Switzerland
Last weekend was supposed to be a busy one on Swiss slopes with the number of open ski areas due to more than double from two to five! But year round Zermatt and Saas Fee, open since July, were joined by Crans Montana, Diavolezza near St Moritz and the Titlis glacier at Engelberg as planned with all three deciding to push back their initially announced opening dates. There was however fresh snow.

Zermatt and Saas fee have increased their open terrain however. Zermatt have opened runs on the Furggsattel glacier meaning there's now a choice of 27 runs open at the area and Saas-Fee have opened runs and lifts further down the mountain increasing the skiable vertical down to the mid-station at Morenia.

The next area to open in Switzerland will be the Diavolezza glacier near St Moritz, which delayed its planned opening last weekend to this weekend (22nd). Engelberg may open then too and will decide in the next 24 hours. Crans Montana appears to have delayed opening now until November.

Arosa, is scheduled to open a week on Saturday – 29th October. If it does open as planned it will be the first non-glacier ski area in Switzerland to open for 16-17, but it is reported to have invested in a special snowmaking machine capable of operating in positive temperatures. A sixth Swiss glacier area, Glacier 3000 between Diablerets and Gstaad, is also scheduled to open on the 29th.

Scandinavia
There's no change on a week ago in Scandinavia with three areas open in Norway and Finland.

Ruka is now over a week into its longest-non-glacier-resort-ski-season-in-the-world 2016-17 season thanks to using recycled snow from last season, a technique also used by Geilo in Norway. Ruka's run number 13, Saarua, is the open slope, the same one that will be kept open well in to May next year at the other end of the season. Temperatures are just hovering a few degrees above freezing making snowmaking just about possible at times.

Also open as it has been all summer is the Galdhoppigen glacier in Norway which has a 4m base and should stay open to the end of the month.

North America
There have been some huge snowfalls in Western North America on high slopes, Jackson Hole and Whistler both reported big 50cm+ accumulations over the weekend and many other areas had good snowfalls too.
The battle to be the first resort on the continent to open for 2016-17 continues with several centres in Colorado tantalisingly close, but the weather keeps fluctuating between cold-enough-for-snowmaking to warm-enough-to-thaw. Arapahoe Basin has announced they will open tomorrow, and Loveland are expected to announce opening day imminently.

Southern Hemisphere
Although more fresh snow has been reported in Australia and New Zealand in the last seven days there have been no reported re-openings of ski areas closed at the end of the 2016 season and only Mt Ruapehu in New Zealand remains open for snow-sports.

Both its Whakapapa and Turoa snowfield were still operating last week although there were some weather closures as snowstorms brought another 10cm/4 inches of fresh powder at the weekend to build the substantial bases still further. There's 2.2m at Whakapapa and 1.7m at Turoa. The centre will be open until at least November 6th.

Arapahoe Basin Ski Area announces opening day for 2016-17 ski and ride season


Photo: Dave Camara/Arapahoe Basin Ski Area

Ski area will kick off its 70th season this Friday

ARAPAHOE BASIN, Colo. – Arapahoe Basin Ski Area (A-Basin) will open for the 2016-17 ski and snowboard season on Friday, October 21, 2016. Starting at 9:00 a.m., skiers and snowboarders will be able to access the intermediate High Noon trail via the Black Mountain Express lift. Arapahoe Basin is generally the first ski area in Colorado to open, and also often the first ski area to open its lifts to the public in North America.

"This is going to be a tremendous start to the ski season at Arapahoe Basin and in the state of Colorado," said Alan Henceroth, Arapahoe Basin Chief Operating Officer. "We've been fortunate to have optimal conditions for our snowmaking team to get a base on the High Noon trail, and offer our guests skiing and snowboarding in October."

Tickets and passes are on sale at arapahoebasin.com or on-site from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Current lift ticket window pricing will run through December 16, 2016, with adult (ages 19-59) full-day tickets priced at $76, youth (ages 15-18) window tickets priced at $64 and child (ages 6-14) window tickets priced at $38. Children age 5 and under ski free every day of the season. Information about season passes and multi-day tickets can be found at ArapahoeBasin.com.

Other skier services available on opening day include ski and board rentals in the Winter Sports Center (8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.) and retail sales, temporarily located in the Kids Center (8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.). Snowsports value season private lessons are available starting opening day. Dining options include: limited hot and grab-and-go breakfast items at the 6th Alley Bar & Grill from 7:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.; full lunch and après service in the 6th Alley Bar & Grill starting at 10:30 a.m.; and lunch service at Black Mountain Lodge (mid-mountain) starting at 10:30 a.m. A-Basin Mug Club sales start opening day at 8:00 a.m. in Marnie's Bar on the 2nd floor of the A-Frame; mugs are $45 and entitle the owner to beverage discounts in the 6th Alley Bar & Grill and a free beer to kick off the season. Mugs are sold on a first-come, first-served basis; limit one mug per customer – must be 21 years of age.

Cool, nice pictures everyone!

Wanderer wrote:Great addition and real easy to use. Hope you have lots of storage because this will lead to lots more photos :-)

Thanks, we've got room for a few more pics... :-D

acarr wrote:Admin - my picture uploaded fine but when I click on the drop down list of smileys it's just blank.

Ooh, so it is. Sorry about that; search team is out looking for the smileys now...