J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by J2SkiNews

Snow depths have started building in the Alps again as conditions turned wintry once more of Monday morning following a largely dry and sunny period over the past fortnight.

Within 24 hours some resorts had reported 70cm (28 inches) of snow had fallen with the biggest accumulations reported in the Swiss Valais and Bernese Oberland regions, followed by ski areas in Northwestern Austria, and also some areas in the Northern French Alps.

Gstaad was the resort posting the biggest snowfalls stats, followed by fellow Swiss Valais ski area Lotschental, which says it received 67cm (27 inches) of snowfall since Monday morning.

Lech Zurs in the Arlberg region (pictured above today) topped the fresh snow tallies in Austria with 50cm (20 inches), a little ahead of neighbour St Anton with 40cm (16 inches).

In France ski areas in the Chamonix region including les Contamines and Chamonix itself reported 30cm (a foot) of snowfall in the same period.

J2Ski forecasts now expect there to be a general lull with only light snowfall, if any, over the next few days but another front bringing heavy snow at the weekend, just as the first charter flights for 19-20 season package holidays come in.

Base depths have already hit 4m (13.3 feet) in the Italian Alps following very heavy November snowfall.

Mmmm and I was reading the city has banned motor vehicles due to chronic smog - they missed that in the press release...

Revelstoke in BC, Canada, has announced that it is opening its full vertical for the first time thiswinter, the biggest in North America, following a week of heavy snowfall.

The full 1,730 vertical metres (5,620 vertical feet) is open with the lower mountain is skiable via The Last Spike run.

The resort says it has had 67cm (27 inches) f snow over the past week allowing the mountain to open top to bottom. Seasonal snowfall to date is 2.9 metres already and base depth 111cm.

There's been heavy snowfall in many parts of Western North America over the weekend with ski areas in California getting another few feet of fresh snow after similar falls a week earlier over Thanksgiving. In Eastern BC, Fernie has reported nearly 50cm of snowfall over the weekend.

However the picture is not universally good, with ski areas in more north westerly coastal areas of the continents not getting much snow yet and more often war, wet weather. Whistler Blackcomb, also in BC, which has the continent's biggest ski area, has only a small fraction of its terrain open so far with a thin base.

Pic credit Sean Anley

Courmayeur have announced a 'new' ski slope will open this season offers panoramic views of the 2750m high Arp Ridge and of Mont Blanc.

The resort has invested just under €1.5million in the new Arp slope which begins as a 700m red-grade descent which provides access to a north-facing black piste with a further 600m descent at a 70% gradient.

The terrain was previously accessed by free-riders and off-piste skiers accessing it from the Arp Cable Car and the construction of the slope is also the first step in a bigger project which will also see the replacement of the Youla and Arp lifts next year.

"The exposure of the slope and the altitude guarantee an exceptional quality snow cover and excellent snowfall both at the beginning and at the end of season," a spokesperson for the resort said.

A new direct flight route from London Luton to Sarajevo with national carrier FlyBosnia has opened up the possibility of easy access to the ski slopes of Sarajevo, which hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics.

In recent years the pistes on which the Olympic races were originally held have been restored following the devastation of the area during the subsequent Balkans War and the Olympic rings are now on display at the base of the slopes, to remind visitors of its legacy.

There are two main ski mountains, Jahorina and Bjelasnica, located 28km (less than an hour's drive) from the airport.

Jahorina, the larger, has 45 km ski runs served by eight ski lifts including a new gondola this season and three fast modern six-seater chairlifts, with a combined capacity of around 17,000 skiers per hour. The centre usually gets a 1-3 metre snow coverage and usually has uncrowded slopes.

"For Christmas and New Year bookings, there are none of the additional supplements normally added, making Sarajevo one of the most affordable places to ski this festive season. Additionally, with equipment hire only €12 per day and food and drinks payable in the local "Bosnian Marks," skiers pay only a fraction of what they would in the Alps," a spokesperson for Bristol-based Ski Sarajevo (ski-sarajevo.com), which has been operating holidays to the country for six years, said.

FlyBosnia flights depart every Saturday and Tuesday making one-week, ten-night, or long weekend visits possible.

The 2019-20 ski season in Scotland will officially kick off on Saturday at Cairngorm ski centre above Aviemore.

The centre's 'Snowsports Festive Launch Event' will take place from 10am-3pm, and include snowsports taster sessions for under 5s, demos from Cairngorm Ski Club, Scottish Ski club and Gordon Ski Club and Cairngorm Snowboard Club as well as mince pies and mulled wine and the chance to meet Santa and his reindeer.

With temperatures in the valley forecast to reach 11C on Thursday/Friday, along with a yellow weather warning for heavy rain, it unfortunately currently seems unlikely there'll be much, if any, natural snow cover on the slopes. Cairngorm is planning a lot of activities to get the season started though and has been making flake-ice snow with its all-weather TechnoAlpin SnowFactory machine for over a month.

Slightly ironically it has been sub-zero with natural snow cover for much of November in the Scottish mountains, but has now warmed up as we enter December and most of the natural snow has gone.

However the centres are posting images of large amounts of all-weather snowmaking machine snow with Glencoe reporting they now have a 200 metre long run for sledging and beginner ski lessons.

This winter all five Scottish Highland ski area have all-weather snowmaking systems after the two that didn't install them last year, Glenshee and Nevis range both installed their own system with investments of around £1m a piece.

The Nevis Range system is different to the TechnoAlpin machines most commonly used, with a Dutch system, built in China, that is set to be especially powerful.

Cairngorm's opening comes as the centre's future continues to be uncertain with a decision still to be made on whether its key funicular rail link to its upper mountain is repaired at an estimate cost of around £10m, or removed at an estimated cost of £13m and replaced with something else at further cost., It will be the second winter that the funicular has not operated.

There have been yet another few days of heavy snowfall in the Alps to round off a very snowy November and start December on a good note.

Things are starting to look good almost everywhere for the main start of the season and the first package holiday departures of the 19-20 season in less than a fortnight's time.

Some areas have reported up to (another) 1.2 metres (four feet) of fresh snow in the last 72 hours and Serre Chevalier (Which isn't due to open for another 12 days) reported 60cm (two feet) in the past 24 hours alone. The picture above was taken before the latest snow today.

Ski areas in the Portes du Soleil region reported 1.2 (four feet) of snowfall since Saturday and Anzere, in the Swiss Valais region reported a metre of snow in the past 72 hours too.

There does appear to be a (hopefully) 'slight lull' in the round of storms bringing ever more snow to Europe however with little snow forecast for the rest of this week in the alps now according to J2ski's forecasting, and temperatures looking set to go above freezing to quite high altitudes (at least above 2000 metres).

Hopefully though the volumes of early snowfall and the fact that temperatures are not expected to go much above zero should mean thawing should be minimal for most areas.

The ski season is back on track in western North America after huge snowstorms dumped up to 1.5 metres (five feet) of snow on resorts in the major ski states of California, Colorado and Utah.

The snow fell through the Thanksgiving long holiday weekend which saw more than 100 ski areas open across the country.

The volumes of snow caused some access problems but most areas were able to operate and skiers and boarders enjoyed superb deep powder conditions at many areas.

Big name resorts opening in the past few days includes Park City and Snowbird (pictured above yesterday) in Utah with Whistler Blackcomb also opening north of the border -although so far with less fresh snowfall up there.

Utah's Powder mountain has reported the most snowfall in the past week – 1.6 metres (5.3 feet) with 60cm (two feet) of that over the past 48 hours.

Fellow Utah resort Brighton is just a few centimetres behind on 157cm and Mammoth, which at the start of this week was open with just a few ribbons on white machine made snow, has had 132cm (over four feet).

Currently J2Ski forecasts show a lull in snowfall in Colorado and Utah but the heavy snow continuing in California, with up to a metre more expected over the next 4-5 days.