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Italy's government say that ski areas there will not now be able to open until at least Easter in its latest delay.

The country was the first in Europe to go in to a full lockdown, almost a year ago, on March 9th 2020 and most ski areas there have not opened since, although several, including Cervinia, were able to open from late spring to mid-Autumn in between lockdowns.

Since announcing ski areas had to close in late October there have now been around half-a-dozen possible opening dates given. The last one, in mid-February, seemed the most likely to actually happen and many resorts got their ski areas staffed and prepared to open and had sold out of lift tickets before the government announced the evening before that actually they wouldn't be allowed to open.

Italy has introduced a system of tiered restrictions, in which there are currently two regions in the most restricted red, nine in moderate orange, eight in low yellow and one in the lowest, white (Sardinia). Before the last-minute decision not to allow them to in mid-February, ski areas in yellow regions had believed told they could open.

Under the latest decree cinemas, theatres and concert halls can reopen in yellow zones from 27 March, under strict social distancing rules and with online reservations, but swimming pools, gyms and ski slopes remain closed. There's also a ban on travelling between regions, except for necessity or emergency.

The latest emergency decree keeping ski areas closed is in force until 6 April, the day after Easter Monday.

One of Austria's largest ski areas has announced it is ending its 20-21 season early, this weekend, on March 7th.

The news comes as two other ski areas that announced they were closing a few weeks ago as Tirol region introduced a requirement that skiers must now hold negative COVID tests before hitting the slopes, St Anton and Solden, have decided to reopen.

The Skiwelt region, which includes the skiing above eight ski resorts including Soll, Ellmau, Westendorf and Hopfgarten, was for many years the largest in Austria and had maintained about 150km of slopes open since ski areas in Austria were able to open on Christmas Eve.

The early closure is due to economics, "There were days when more staff were in the ski resort than guests," a resort spokesperson said, "There are perfect conditions, empty slopes - actually the dream of every skier – but we have to inform you that with 7th March 2021, SkiWelt unfortunately has to end the continuous ski operation after more than 70 working days for this winter season."

The statement goes on to say that the ski lift company has not had a single day this season where they broke even. They say they might re-open at a weekend later this month or in April if it looks worthwhile to do so.

"We have always shown together: skiing is safe, healthy and just makes you happy," the statement concludes.

A New Zealand ski area that had planned to extend its terrain ion one direction, has changed its plans after rare lizards were discovered in the area.

Instead Cardrona ski area has upcycled/refurbished their former McDougall's Quad, originally proposed for the Pringles terrain expansion plan now abandoned due to the lizards, and expand in their recently acquired Soho ski area instead.

The chairlift has now been renamed the Willows Quad chairlift and will be completed in time for the start of the winter season later this year. The area has been named after a fantasy adventure film shot in the area more than three decades ago – not Lord of the Rings this time, but the 1988 movie, Willow.

Willows Basin will be the first new major lift-accessed terrain in New Zealand since the opening of the Valley View Quad at Cardrona in 2012. 65 hectares of primarily intermediate terrain will be accessed from the top of the McDougall's Chondola through to the bottom of the Willows Quad.
Cardrona/Treble Cone General Manager Bridget Legnavsky says it is an exciting moment for the resort.

"Our dream is to create a ski experience unlike anything else in New Zealand, where you go on an adventure through different valleys and basins while soaking in fantastic views – this move into Soho Ski Area is the first step in unlocking that vision," says Legnavsky, adding,
"From Willows Basin it feels like you can reach out and touch the Southern Alps – that's a special feeling."

New Zealand remains the only country where skiing and snowboarding has been able to continue fairly normally after their successful suppression of the virus. This will hopefully still be the case when the 2021 season begins in June.

In fact ski areas were so busy at times last winter they faced capacity challenges, highlighted during the busy July school holiday period in 2020. Cardrona's Valley View Quad will be back operational in 2021, and with the new Willows Quad also in action, the resort's uphill lift capacity will be 44% greater than it was in 2020.

"We're addressing some of our key challenges from Winter 2020 – we knew we had to make some significant changes for this winter, and Willows is going to be a great asset for Cardrona in 2021," says Legnavsky.

Verbier's lift company, Téléverbier, has announced that despite a bad revenue year due to the pandemic, they have decided to press ahead with new lifts and other infrastructure upgrade plans.

Projects to be completed for next winter include:

Replacement of the Médran 1 lift with a new 10-seater gondola that will double the flow between Médran and Les Ruinettes.

Upgrade of the snowmaking between Lac des Vaux and Les Ruinettes enabling better use of early season cold weather periods to increase the guarantee of skiing from the beginning of December.

Téléverbier's also said that If all the necessary authorizations are obtained in time, significant investment is also on the cards including an upgrade of the Pasay chairlift in Brusson in 2022 as well as the construction of the Chargerat lift.

Despite starting the current season at the end of October last year, and deciding to go ahead with planned investments, Téléverbier's CEO Laurent Vaucher said the combination of higher operating costs to meet pandemic operating requirements as well as lower income due to fewer guests and closed restaurants.

"We need to take some cost-saving measures. We had planned to operate the Bruson sector daily until the evening of Monday, April 5, 2021 but after analysing the situation, this sector will be closed for the rest of the season from Sunday evening, March 7, 2021. This decision was not an easy one. However, this is an exceptional measure for an exceptional situation," he said.

Managers, ski instructors, rental shops and travel companies are all reporting bumper business this winter at India's Gulmarg ski area.

Gulmarg, the world's highest 'proper' ski area by some measures, is fully booked until April 10th, according to resort managers.

India ended its lockdown last autumn and business owners in Gulmarg told local media they feared this would be a lacklustre winter with international tourism almost non-existent with very limited travel.

Instead though, there has been a huge surge in domestic ski tourism with far more Indians than ever before arriving in the resort wishing to learn to ski. Ski rental shops and ski schools report that even with almost no international tourism business is around double pre-pandemic levels.

Some local ski business owners speculate that many Indians reassessed their priorities in life during lockdown and are now heading to the mountains now they have the chance. Others see the fresh mountain air as a healthy option top look for whilst the pandemic continues.

Austrian ski resort Ischgl has hit world headlines during the pandemic as an epicentre of infections in the early months of 2020.

Along with making it a target for a massive legal action by those who believe they were infected on holiday there last winter, the resort has also been seen as a great place for scientists to study the long term impacts of COVID infections.

A study carried out on Ischgl by the The Medical University of Innsbruck during the first pandemic lockdown in April last year found that 42% of Ischgl's residents had developed antibodies to ward off the virus.

Now the results of a second study conducted seven months later have been published showing that 90% of those who developed antibodies, or about 38% of Ischgl's population, still had them.

Scientists believe the results show that so called 'herd immunity' may start more quickly, with a smaller percentage of population required to have the antibodies, and then last longer, than generally believed.

Ischgl is reported to have had much lower levels of infection in the second wave than the first and than comparable villages.

Although the mainstream news is naturally focussed on the unusual cold and snowy weather in Texas at present, there's been unusually snowy weather for many US ski areas too.

Of course big dumps of snow in the Rockies in February aren't unusual, but the mountains had been having a below average snowfall winter until a few days ago, and Snowbird described the 1.1 metres (nearly four feet) of snow that fell there in 60 hours there this week as a storm the like of which they had not seen for two decades.



Access to Snowbird and neighbouring Alta (pictured) was blocked due to extreme avalanche danger above access roads as well as on the slopes and both areas were closed for several days this week, but have now reopened with "lots of pow."

Although these two areas saw the biggest snowfalls, many areas in the Western US have reported 1-2 feet (30-60cm) of fresh snowfall over the past three days.

Hotelplan, the company which runs the UK's second largest ski holiday company Inghams, as well as Flexiski, Ski Total and Ski Esprit, have cancelled all ski trips for the rest of this winter.

The news was not unexpected and followed a similar announcement from the UK's largest operator, Crystal, 48 hours before. Hotelplan had previously cancelled all trips up to Easter for most of its brands leaving just a few weeks at the end of the season, although it cancelled all ski holidays this season for Ski Esprit several months ago.

"Due to the ongoing impacts of covid-19, this week, we have suspended all Inghams, Flexiski and Ski Total ski trips for the rest of this winter," said Hotelplan UK CEO, Joe Ponte, who added, "We're very disappointed for everyone impacted by this news. Customers with bookings in April will be offered a refund or the chance to postpone their holiday until a later date. We would like to thank our customers and partners for their patience and understanding, and as always, they can be reassured that we will continue to look to do the right thing by them."

"With many skiers and snowboarders eager to get back to the slopes this season, while there was still a possibility that ski holidays would go ahead, we continued to monitor the situation closely. As there has been little change to ongoing travel restrictions, and with further ski resorts announcing that they will remain closed, now is the time to suspend ski trips for this season and focus on making next winter one of the best yet," Mr Poste continued, adding, "We continue to see strong numbers for the 2021/22 winter season and bookings are well ahead of the same period last year. As people think about their holiday plans now, to avoid missing out next winter, across the Hotelplan UK brands we'll be looking at how we can increase capacity to keep up with demand—and some of next winter's holidays are on track for a record-breaking year."