J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by J2SkiNews

Conditions are looking good at many southern hemisphere ski areas as the start of the 2015 season nears.

In New Zealand the latest southerly storm has given Queenstown's Coronet Peak and The Remarkables (Pictured above) the best possible start to winter with up to half a metre of snow blanketing both ski areas. This follows other May storms which have brought up to 1.5m of snow to some NZ areas.

Staff at Coronet Peak and The Remarkables found themselves knee-deep in fresh powder this morning. Opening dates are less than three weeks away on June 13 for Coronet Peak and June 20 for The Remarkables.

"This sets us up for a great start to the 2015 season," he said. "We've got our groomers out working to pack down the snow on piste and we can continue to make more snow on top of this fantastic natural base. This early-season fall will give visitors confidence to book their ski holiday for the coming season," said operator NZSki's CEO Paul Anderson.

The cold snap is expected to deliver further snow flurries to Queenstown throughout today (Monday May 25) and into tomorrow. The forecast is for continued cold temperatures through until at least Wednesday, providing perfect conditions for snowmaking at Coronet Peak.

Elsewhere in the southern hemisphere there have been promising pre-season snowfalls in Australia too, although much of the early snow has subsequently melted. Australian areas traditionally open on the first weekend of June regardless of snow conditions. Webcam images have shown resorts currently making snow.

It's a similar scenario in southern Africa where Afriski in Lesotho and Tiffindell in Southern Africa are often the first ion the southern hemisphere to open, sometimes in the last week of May. There's no snow reported at either centre at present but Afriski says it will open a week on Thursday, June 4th.

Resorts in South America normally open in the latter half of June, although they will in some cases open earlier if snow is good. So far limited snowfall has been reported although some forecasters are predicting that the same Pacific weather system that has left the North American west coast warm and dry for the past for winter should bring abundant snow to the same region south of the equator.

It's late May but some big snowfalls have been recorded in the Alps over the past 36 hours.

Austria has the most glacier ski areas open and the Stubai has reported 45cm of fresh snow (pictured above) with the year round Hintertux glacier also reporting significant new snow.
There was 40cm of new snow on the kitzsteinhorn glacier near Kaprun as well.

Ski areas are continuing to close for the 2014-215 season, whilst some others are opening.

Sunshine ski area at Banff closed on Monday leaving only Whistler open in Canada and Mammoth in California says this weekend will be its last. It's also closing day on Sunday at the Engelberg and Diavolezza glaciers in Switzerland, leaving only Zermatt open there, but in Norway the Stryn glacier has opened today, joining the country's Folgefonn and Galdhoppigen summer glacier ski areas, which are all reporting deep bases.

On the weekend of 30/31t May Italy's Passo Stelvio summer glacier ski area is due to open and the first areas in the southern hemisphere – Tiffindell in South Africa and Afriski in Lesotho should be opening too with areas in Australia and New Zealand – which have been reporting good pre-season snowfalls, starting to open in subsequent weeks.

The cold temperatures also mean that ski touring conditions are reported to be excellent in Scotland, where there was fresh snow earlier this week, although all five centres are now closed.

A new lift under construction in Austria is believed tol be the first to cross the provincial boundary between Salzburgerland and Tirol and create one of the country's largest ski areas in the process.

A new 3.5km (2.1 mile) long piste will run from the Reiterkogel in the area around the Vierstadlalm, with a vertical height difference of 780 metres and will be equipped with powerful snowmaking facilities.

The ski areas of Fieberbrunn and Saalbach Hinterglemm Leogang will be connected by a new gondola due to open this December, creating an area of 240km (150 miles), served by 68 lifts, the second biggest in Austria after the Skiwelt by some measures. There are reported to be plans to further extend the area by connecting it to Zell am See in the future.

A Doppelmayr 10 seat gondola will link Saalbach and Fieberbrunn in a 20 million Euro connection that is being marketed as 'TirolS'

The new lift will have a capacity of 2600 guests per hour and will start from a bottom station at Reckmoos-Süd, then have a middle station at the base of the Hörndlingergraben near the Pulvermacheralm, and then continue up to the Reiterkogel in the centre of the Skicirus.

Neilson are to offer free of charge ski guiding in France and other countries next season.

The tour operator will use established ski schools to provide the service, avoiding the controversy of recent years with prosecutors, particularly in France but also now in other countries, questioning whether staff offering hosting and guiding have acceptable qualifications.

For example, Neilson is working with the ESS (European Ski & Snowboard school) in Les Deux Alpes.

Neilson are calling the service 'mountain experts' and it is not offered to all guests but to those staying in their Neilson Mountain Collection properties.

These includes guests staying at the Hotel Del Clos in El Tarter, Andorra, the Hotel Turquoise in La Plagne, the Hotel Aalborg and the Hotel Le Cret, both in Les Deux Alpes and the Hotel Escapade in Alpe D'Huez.

There are also a range of chalets in France, Andorra and Italy included within the Neilson Mountain Collection.

Targeted at those who can already ski on blue and red pistes the service, which was trialled last season, will offer a weekly timetable of classes for various ability levels and on different types of terrain. Guests can choose whether to be guided or to get performance tips too.

Other British tour operators have made changes in recent seasons too. Crystal positions non-skiing hosts at key ski lift base stations to offer their guests advice and also offers free hosting using local ski school staff at some resorts.

The legal actions between tour operators and the French authorities over their ban on ski hosting by tour operator staff who do not have the highest French ski school qualifications and a separate case against the Ski Club of Great Britain for using guides without the highest French ski school qualifications and a third case against a British ski school for offering ski lessons from teachers who did not hold the highest French ski school qualifications which all began around 2013 are all ongoing in the meantime.

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Up to 45cm of fresh snow in the past few days has led both Mammoth in California and Whistler Blackcomb in Canada to announce they'll be offering snowsports for several more weeks.

Mammoth Mountain has, like the rest of western North America endured which in some cases has been declared the warmest driest winter on record. It is usually open in to June and sometimes to the July 4th US Independence Day weekend holiday but this season said it hoped to stay open instead to the Memorial Day holiday on the last weekend of this month. However it then announced it would close for the season today, May 10th.

But the fresh snow has led to an announcement it will be open next weekend, and possibly further in to spring.

Snowbird in Utah, also open at weekends still, has also reported 30cm of fresh snow in the past few days.
However most other areas in the Western US states have closed, including many others that usually stay open to late May or June. Amongst them Mt Bachelor in Oregon which announced its earliest closing for nearly four decades.

North of the border Whistler. Which has also had a challenging snowfall season, announced it would stay open an extra few weeks to June 7th, after receiving 60cm of fresh snow in April and more snow this month.

It will now be closed for less than a fortnight before re-opening for five weeks of summer glacier skiing to the end of July.

It's the final week of the ski season in France with only Tignes and Val Thorens still operating their higher runs, both are set to close on Sunday (May 10th).

But warm weather in parts of the French Alps have led to a combination of rapid snowmelt and heavy rain has led to swollen rivers and in some cases flooding

At Avoriaz where the base of the Express du Stade six-seater chairlift has been totally submerged as a result of flooding resulting from an adjacent snowmaking lake bursting its banks.

Although the base of the lift is located 1,500m above sea level, it is in a natural bowl in the landscape and the floodwater was around 7m (24 feet) deep at its peak on Tuesday, touching the wheel holding the chairlift cable.

Water levels are reported to be slowly subsiding at present.

Val Thorens has a 175cm base on upper runs, Tignes 134cm. The latter reported 20cm of fresh snow last Friday May 1st.

There will be no French areas open (or at least, operating lifts) after this weekend until Tignes, Les 2 Alpes and Val d'Isere re-open for summer glacier skiing in June.

The coming long weekend is the 'final blowout' of the season at a number of top resorts around the world and several have enjoyed heavy snow in the last 24 hours meaning it could be a powdery one.

In Austria higher slopes reported up to 15cm of fresh powder this morning (Thursday April 30th) and are said to be in excellent shape for the start of May. The Stubai (pictured above this morning), Kitzsteinhorn, Pitztal, Molltal, Hintertax and Kaunertal glaciers are all open, and it's the big closing weekend of the long season at Ischgl.

French resorts have reported up to 40cm of fresh snow (at Chamonix) in the last week with up to 10cm in the past few days. Val Thorens and the Espace Killy were also beneficiaries. In Italy there were similar falls at Cervinia (also on its final weekend of the season) and year-round Zermatt reported fresh snow too.

In Scotland nightly snowfalls at Glencoe (pictured below on Tuesday) have led to powder conditions for its final weekend of the season. There was great excitement in Scottish media when an obscure Australian ski magazine posted in its social media that Scotland currently has the world's best snow conditions.



There's been fresh snow in Scandinavia too with the Norwegian resort of Narvik reporting 20cm of new snow falling ion 24 hour on Wednesday. The first of Norway's three summer glacier areas, Folgefonn, opens on Friday, May 1st for the season and is reporting an 8m snow base! It is also nearing 24 hour daylight at Riksgransen in Northern Sweden where skiing under the midnight sun will begin in a few weeks' time.

Vail Resorts, which now operates the neighbouring ski areas of Park City Mountain Resort and Canyons in Utah, have published details of their plans to merge the two to create the largest ski area in the US (and second largest in North America, behind Whistler Blackcomb) for next winter, 2015-16.

The newly merged area, which will have 7.300 acres of terrain (about 1000 less than Whistler Blackcomb) does not yet appear to have an official name, although the new information released to the media has been under the name 'Park City Mountain' rather than ' Park City Mountain Resort (PCMR) and Canyons Resort' so it is not yet clear if Vail will market the combined area under this one name giving it two 'bases' at PCMR and Canyon's like Heavenly's California and Nevada bases, or if it will keep the two resorts as separate entities of equal value and different names as at present.

The two ski areas will be linked by a new 8 passenger gondola connection, along with the new King Con Express Six-pack and Motherlode Express Quad chairlifts at a cost of over fifty million US dollars (around £30m) for the 2015-16 season.

The combined area will feature 300+ trails served by 38 lifts and have seven terrain parks, six natural half pipes, one super pipe and one mini pipe.

Last season the largest ski area in the US title was claimed by both Powder Mountain, also in Utah, claims 'over 7000' acres, although only about a third of it lift accessed, and by Big Sky in Montana, which since it absorbed the former Moonlight Basin ski area, claimed 5750 acres.

Opening day for the new Park City – Canyons ski area will be November 20th, 2015