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UK Arrivals Self-Quarantine Requirement Cut By Half if You Pay for A Test
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Skiers arriving back in England after a trip abroad can cut the time they need to spend self-isolating from 14 to 6-7 days according to new rules announced by the government. After five days of self-isolation upon return skiers can take a virus test, privately and at their expense, which, if it returns negative, would then allow them to stop self-isolating. The new rules are due to come in to force from December 15th and the tests are likely to cost £60 to £120 each with results typically taking 24-48 hours to be received. Initially the new rules only apply to arrivals back to England with other UK nations yet to make an announcement. Almost all countries with ski resorts are currently on the UK government list of destinations where you need to self-isolate on your return to the UK. There may also be requirements to self-isolate or other restrictions on arrival in other countries on the way out from the UK in some cases. Some ski nations are also currently only allowing international arrivals for essential travel. Austria, France, Germany and Italy are currently all in November lockdowns, like England, and it should become clear over the next few weeks what the position will be in each in terms of resorts re-opening in December. Most resorts expect to open but this is largely down to local and national government decisions. |
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One of the longest planned indoor snow centres in the Middle East will open in 2021, the company behind it says. Snow Park Abu Dhabi will be a 'destination snow park attraction' covering 11,600 square metres (125,000 sq ft park) with less of an onus on skiing and snowboarding, it is understood, but more on multi-snow fun activities including sledging and zorbing. There will be 13 different snow fun activities and rides available. The malls developers say it will be "the world's largest indoor snow park" however 11,600 square metres places it around 29th ion the world by indoor snow area – but all of the larger centres are predominantly ski and snowboarding centres. Ski Dubai is more than double the size at nearly 28,000 square metres and is ow the eighth largest in the world by slope area. Work on Abu Dhabi's $1.2bn Reem Mall where the park is located, which will feature the Snow Park, is reported to have been ongoing through the pandemic, and it will open next year investors Agility say, although an exact opening date has not yet been set. After many years of planning work on Reem Mall, located in the Najmat District on Reem Island and which will contain 450 shops, restaurants and a cinema, got underway in 2017. http://www.reemmall.ae According to IndoorSnowNews.com more than 130 indoor snow centres have now been built in around 35 countries on six continents over the past 30 years. More than 100 are currently operational (including those temporarily closed due to COVID restrictions in the countries where they are located). |
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Snow condition are the best in the world in Western Canada at present with Sunshine ski area near Banff posting 92cm (3 feet, 1 inch) of fresh snowfall in the past 7 days, taking their season-to-date total to 2.5 metres (8 feet plus). The ski area, along with others across western Canada, have been posting powder conditions daily with 10-20cm falling every 24 hours. As a result the five centres already open in Alberta, including all three Banff areas and Jasper's Marmot Basin, have been increasing the amount of terrain they have available, and ski areas have also begun opening in neighbouring BC. Sun Peak and Big White are among the latest to open with Big White immediately posting the deepest base in North America for open resorts so far at 1.2 metres (four feet). Coronavirus-spread-prevention limitations on skier numbers to allow social-distancing combined with limited terrain open continues to cause issues at some areas, with Cypress Mountain, along with Grouse mountain one of the two areas already open on Canada's Pacific Coast, reporting on Friday it had already sold out of lift tickets for Saturday and Sunday. Almost all skiers will be Canadians with the country's borders remaining largely closed. Canada has now joined the USA, Switzerland, and prior to it's current lockdown, Austria, in having 10 or more ski areas already open for winter 21-22. |
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The US now has more open ski areas than any other country, with many more US resorts targeting this Saturday or Sunday for their opening weekend. Around a dozen US resorts have now opened, overtaking Switzerland, with 11 areas (although more than half of those currently open only at weekends), which had itself overtaken Austria at the start of this month, initially because Austria's open glacier ski areas were forced to close by a November lockdown in the country. Crystal Mountain in Washington State is one of the latest to open, two days earlier than planned. Resorts are also open in California, Idaho, Minnesota, Oregon, Wisconsin and Colorado – which has the most open for a single state, with five centres open. Resorts in California, where Mammoth opened last week, are reporting heavy snowfall at present with many aiming to open in the next week. Among ski areas planning to open in the next week are big names like Heavenly and Squaw Valley in California, the country's largest ski area at Park City in Utah and Vail in Colorado. The East Coast has had a challenging autumn for weather with unseasonably warm conditions which, unusually. Ski areas in individual states have also been waiting state government advice on operations during the pandemic. This has meant nowhere is open there yet but Killington in Vermont (pictured above yesterday) announced a few hours ago that they will be opening this Friday, 20th November, the first day areas are allowed to in Vermont. Most other East Coast ski areas that had hoped to open this weekend have pushed opening day back to next Thursday or later. |
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There's good news for all the skiers and boarders who have been complaining about images and video posted of great early-Autumn snow conditions in the Alps, when ski areas are closed or they don't feel safe to travel to even when open. The first reports are coming in of ski areas unable to open for an old-fashioned, pre-virus reason: it's too warm for good snow condition or snowmaking down in the valleys. It's still early days of course, and conditions up on glaciers are reported to remain superb, but after snowfall down to the valley floor in October and repeated 'big dumps' up high, November has so far proved largely warm and dry, particularly at lower elevations. The first signs of problems came when the planned World Cup races at Lech Zurs last weekend were delayed by a fortnight. Now Zermatt, which has Europe's highest lifts and has been re-opened since last spring, says it is delaying the start of its winter season by a week – from late November to early December.
Elsewhere published delayed opening and generally being caused by virus-related lockdowns where ski areas are located. Austria recently extended restrictions to December 6th, with some areas saying they planned to re-open on the 7th, but a number of larger areas like the Arlberg and Zillertal arena saying they'll now wait to the 17th December. In France most of the big areas intend to open on the weekends they had planned to in early December, assuming the country's lockdown ends at the end of the month as planned. Some ski areas in North America have also delayed due to weather more than the virus. Tremblant in Quebec is one of those announcing it would be doing so. |
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Work is due to get underway in the next week to repair the funicular railway which serves the top station of the Cairngorm ski area above Aviemore in the Scottish Highlands and provides a year-round attraction for non-skiers. The lift last operated over two years ago when it was closed over safety concerns centred on the concrete track supports of the 20 year old structure. Estimated repair costs to the funicular were initially put at more than £13m, but removing it was said to be even more expensive, and would then leave Cairngorm with a further bill for a replacement lift. The cost of repairs has now increased to more than £16 million with contractors Balfour Beatty reported to be ready to start work with the aim of having the lift operational again for the winter after next, 2021/22. Local media says the precise start date will depend on the Cairngorm National Park Authority, which covers the area where the ski area is concerned, being satisfied that satisfactory environmental safeguarding protocols are in place before work commences. The centre has received more than £20 million in funding, about half direct from the Scottish Government and about half from government agency Highlands and Islands Enterprise which owns the land where the ski centre is based and has taken over running it after the former operators walked away from the centre as its operating costs grew. |
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The UK's two largest ski holiday companies have diverged on their plans for December ski holiday bookings. Inghams have decided now is the time to call it a day on December bookings, whereas Crystal say they still hope December trips may still happen. Here are the two official statements: Crystal: "As the current Government regulations in England are in place until 2 December, and our season kicks off with first flights departing on 12 December, all our ski holidays are still scheduled to operate as planned. We're keeping a close eye on the situation and we will proactively contact customers, if their holidays are impacted, closer to the time of departure and offer them a range of flexible options. With still a month to go until the start of the ski season, we're working hard to remain flexible, so we can react to the ever-changing situation and take as many people to the mountains as we can. We know this can be unsettling for customers, so those with holidays this season also have the option to amend their holiday for free to a later date or future season. The safety and wellbeing of our customers and staff remains our highest priority." Inghams: "Following the commencement of another national lockdown and the continued uncertainty regarding travel restrictions for the remainder of 2020–we have regretfully made the extremely difficult decision to suspend all ski and Lapland holidays departing in December 2020 across our Inghams, Esprit, Ski Total and Flexiski programmes. We know that this will come as an enormous disappointment to our customers, therefore it is not a decision we have taken lightly. Most importantly, the safety of our guests and our staff continues to be our top priority. Therefore, with the ongoing restrictions across the UK and Europe, combined with the unpredictable and constantly evolving situation of COVID-19, this is sadly the right decision. We are still hopeful that we will have a ski season this winter, albeit with a later start. As the situation with COVID-19 changes, we are constantly reviewing what this means for our winter programme–and looking at how we can continue to deliver the ski holidays people want, as safely as possible. We have gone on sale early for the winter 2021/22 ski season. For those customers who have been impacted, we hope they will choose to join us then or later this winter instead, but if they would prefer to receive a refund, we will arrange this. We'd like to thank our customers for their patience throughout these uncertain times. We also hope to reassure everyone planning to travel with us that we intend to continue do the right thing by our customers with the help of the measures we've set out in our 'In Safe Hands' campaign." |
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After a rather slow start to the season compared to its usual early openings, five Colorado ski areas will be open from this Friday 13th October onwards. Loveland is the latest area in the state to open, later today, following big snowfalls there at the start of the week. It joins Arapahoe Basin which opened on Monday, Keystone from last Friday and Wolf Creek which has been open since last month and reported another two feet of snow this week, opening three more lifts as a result. Breckenridge opens on Friday, issuing a statement with the details:
The new openings as well as ski areas opening in the Midwest and up in Canada means at least a dozen areas will be open in North America from Friday, all with strict measures in place to battle COVID. |
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