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It looks like there may be more ski areas operating in May than there were in April in the US – although the picture remains fragmented and uncertain.

Mt Baldy ski area in Southern California caused a stir in late April when it re-opened for a few weeks saying it could offer better social distancing and hygiene than other resuming activities like golf courses. However the late April date was already outside its normal snow season and it closed again last Sunday May 3rd.

The next American ski area to reopen currently looks like being Timberline on Mt Hood in Oregon, the continent's only near year-round ski area (in a normal year) which operates on a permanent snow field which is not quite classified as a glacier.

The governor of Oregon has been easing restrictions and says she will allow ski resorts to re-open, they're just waiting on the executive order with the details.

In the meantime Timberline say they are trying to re-hire staff they had to lay-off nearly two months ago, if they want their jobs back, and also have a whole new selection of jobs which entirely involve maintaining hygiene and disinfecting lifts and other public areas frequently.

Another Oregon area, Mt Bachelor, says it will consider its plans once the executive order is published.

Along with these two areas a small centre called Wild Mountain in Minnesota opened a terrain park with hike-up access on Saturday 9th May and the only summer-ski only area in the US, Red Lodge Mountain on the border of Montana and Wyoming says it intends to open for its short season on May 30th.

In addition, a proposed easing of the current already-part-eased lockdown in Colorado may allow Arapahoe Basin (pictured yesterday) to re-open.

Other areas that have not ruled out re-opening if permitted and a safe-enough and viable way can be found to do it whilst there's still snow lying include Mammoth, Squaw Valley, Snowbird and Whistler.

Austria's Molltal Glacier ski area has confirmed it will open for its 2020-21 ski season on June 6th.

The area, pictured above in May last year, has one of the world's longest seasons, usually running from mid-June one year to mid-May the next, but has of course been closed since mid-March.

Its June 6th opening date appears to be two weeks earlier than its scheduled June 20th date.

It joins the Kitzsteinhorn glacier above Kaprun in Salzburgerland which already announced it would re-open for summer skiing on May 29th.

Two other Austrian glaciers, Hintertux and Kaunertal, are known to be looking at re-opening but are currently working on the details with local authorities to see if it's going to be possible.

The Dachstein Glacier will be open from May 29th but won't offer snowsports until the autumn, its operators say.

The Stubai Glacier, which sometimes operates into June and even early July, has ruled out re-opening for snowsports before September and has covered its glacier in reflective material to try to protect it.

In other countries Norway's three summer ski areas are opening through May, the Timberline ski area in Oregon says it expects to re-open after the state's governor said she was relaxing restrictions to allow ski areas to re-open and Zermatt in Switzerland currently looks likely to re-open in early June.

The three glacier ski areas in France are also believed to be hoping to offer summer skiing if they can. Yesterday the French government announced a gradual easing of their lockdown, dividing the country into green and red zones to determine the speed of easing and putting the French alps in the green zone.

The picture is currently unclear in Italy where there are a number pf possible summer ski areas including Passo Stelvio and Cervinia. However some Italian mountain resorts have indicated they expect to re-open for summer tourism.

What is believed to be the first person to hit the slopes of New Zealand, and possibly the entire southern hemisphere's 2020 season, has been spotted on the slopes of Coronet Peak this morning.

It's still a month until the first ski areas in New Zealand and the rest of the southern hemisphere are due to open for their 2020 season,although what that season will look like on the slopes and indeed whether ski areas will be able to open on schedule due to the pandemic remains uncertain.

It has been snowing though in the Andes, Southern Africa, Australia and in the past 24 hours New Zealand, as winter gets closer.

All six nations in the southern hemisphere that operate ski lifts (Argentina, Australia, Chile, Lesotho, New Zealand and South Africa) remain in lockdown and in most of them it's not permitted to go outside and in to the hills.

However following its so far successful limiting of the virus and its closed borders policy, New Zealand has eased its lockdown to allow people to recreate in a limited way in the hills and for teams to go back to work in ski areas to prepare for the season, making it possible for this person to do a bit of gentle boarding on the thin new powder cover this morning.

Austria's Kitzsteinhorn glacier above Kaprun in Salzburgerland has announced that it will re-open its skiing and snowboarding operation on 29th May, the first in he Alps to do so.

The move, 10 weeks after all of Austria's ski areas were closed in mid-March, follows an Austrian government announcement last week that mountain facilities could resume operations after May 28th.

"The health and safety of our guests and employees are always our top priority – which is why we have developed appropriate safety guideline for our lifts and our tourism offers," a spokesperson for the region said.

The Kitzsteinhorn ski area (pictured above last July) will be accessible via the Panoramabahn lift every day except Wednesday with skiing on the glacier plateau served by the Gletscherjet 4 and Magnetköpfl lift.

Other Austrian glacier areas are known to be looking a re-opening if they can. The Kauntertal glacier issued a statement on Saturday saying they hoped to re-open. The Hintertux, Molltal and Stubai glaciers are also usually open in June.

The Molltal glacier is now run by the company which re-opened Jasna ski area in Slovakia for summer mountain operations last Friday, May 1st.

Norway's three glacier ski areas are opening through May and ski areas in France and Switzerland are looking at ways to open in June or July if permitted and safe to do so.

With borders closed and travel severely limited to stop the spread of the virus, it is as yet unclear whether anyone other than local Austrian skiers will be able to access the glaciers there this summer.

Austria allowed Austrians to resume ski touring from last Monday, 1st May, but subsequently advised people not to actually go ski touring for health and safety reasons; the country's national ski team are also reported to be back on snow training.

In a fairly rare move for a ski area, Méribel has decided to replace a gondola with a chairlift.

The resort is upgrading its elderly Plattières 3 gondola to a high-speed 6-seater chairlift this summer, ready for next season.

The new chair will provide much faster access over towards Les Menuires and without skiers needing to take their skis of.

However the news of the upgrade had not been universally welcomed. Many of the gondolas had quirky paint jobs and from social media reaction it seems a lot of regular skiers were quite fond of the "slow lift."

The 45 cabins from the old gondola, which was installed 36 years ago, were auctioned off for three local charities at €500 a gondola and sold out within minutes.

Australian ski areas have reported heavy snowfall over the past 48 hours – six weeks before the ski season there is due to kick off, as is traditional, over the Queen's Birthday holiday weekend at the start of June.
The falls of up to 60cm (two feet) are by far the biggest in the southern hemisphere's autumn 2020 so far.

"Mid-winter conditions on the first day of May today at Hotham! An unbelievable dump of 50cm+ in the last 24 hours has seen the snow pillows on the table-o-metre growing by the hour," a resort spokesperson said, "With blizzard conditions today, the flakes continue to fall heavily and we could be in for another 15-20cm from this incredible Autumn snowstorm."

As with most of the rest of the world Australia remains in lockdown and it is unclear as yet whether centres will be able to open partially, or at all, next month. Victoria province where Hotham is located is due to review their lockdown on May 11th.

Generally Australian ski areas are preparing to open, in case they are allowed to, but last month local medical centres where they are located warned their limited facilities might be unable to cope if opening led to COVID-19 cases in resorts.

Over in New Zealand resorts are more optimistic of opening if there is no change to the current trajectory of gradual re-opening facilities. Several areas have already re-opened for summer activities like biking and hiking and stated they will be open for the 2020 ski season, in terms of actual skiing, whilst noting that they might not be able to open facilities like restaurants and accommodation.

Elsewhere in the southern hemisphere it's a similar position in Argentina, Chile Lesotho and South Africa where there has also been fresh snow but countries are also still in lockdown, often with the country's external border also closed.

April is ending with a return to colder weather in several of the main mountain ranges of Europe including the Alps and the Pyrenees.

Hintertux in Austria (pictured above this morning), Zermatt in Switzerland and Les 2 Alpes in France all reported fresh snow on their upper mountains this morning. All three are among ski resorts offering summer skiing in normal winters.

The snowfall continued down to resort level at some centres, including Cervinia this morning, according to video posted by the resort.

Yesterday the Pic du Midi in the French Pyrenees reported fresh snowfall too.

Currently there are around a dozen ski areas open in the world, all of them smaller centres in Norway and Sweden along with one in Southern California.

In terms of ski area re-openings, Jasna in Slovakia will re-open this Friday May 1st for summer mountain tourism. They have strict social distancing rules in place for lift queues and when riding chair and cabin lifts they say.

Austria announced yesterday that mountain railways could resume operations from May 29th if the pandemic there remains on its current trajectory. Schladming is one of the first resorts there to announce it will reopen for summer tourism on that day.

With most borders closed, travel limited and the main advice remaining "stay home" these areas appear to be aiming for some domestic business this summer.

Italy's Kronplatz area, which is one of the world's top three operators of gondola lifts, running 22 such lifts according to SkiResort.info, is the latest to announce it is going ahead with a major lift upgrade this summer ahead of winter 2020-21.

The centre, part of the vast Dolomiti Superski region, says its key Olang 1 + 2 lifts will be renewed.

The new Doppelmayr built lifts, with a combined length of over four kilometres, will feature 10-passenger cabins and have a capacity of 3,900 people per hour.

The world's other big operators of gondolas include Saalabch-Hinterglemm-Leogang-Fieberbrunn with 29 and the Meribel Valley.

Most of the major gondola and other lit construction project planned in Europe this summer appear to be going ahead, with Cortina and Zermatt confirming their big summer upgrades will go ahead as planned recently.

However most previously announced projects in North America have been pout on hold until at least summer 2021.

Currently it is uncertain what limits will be put in place on gondola use next winter, along with other lifts designed to carry groups of people in confined spaces, depending on the status of the pandemic by then. At present it seems likely that, as in the weeks before the early end of the 2019-20 season for most resorts in March, usage will be restricted so only family groups or others who are normally together will be able to board a cabin together. There may also be social-distancing for lift queues boarding. This may have a knock-on effect on getting people up the mountain at peak times.