J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by J2SkiNews

As part of a French national awareness campaign relating to the proper usage of chairlifts, Les 2 Alpes in conjunction with the ESF French Ski School is running a workshop on "how to use a chairlift" throughout the coming winter.

Anyone wanting a free lesson on the correct use of a chairlift should meet at "L'Alpette" chair lift, every Tuesday and Wednesday from 9.30am to 12.30pm throughout the season.

Snowmaking guns were fired up in the last 48 hours of summer in New England over the weekend after temperatures hit record lows in the region, dropping as low as -3C in ski resorts overnight.

At Burlington in Vermont temperatures dropped to freezing (breaking a previous low temperature record for the time of year set 55 years ago) and at the summit of Mt Washington in New Hampshire temperatures were as low as -9C.

A number of ski resorts fired up the snowmaking cannons including Sugarloaf and Sunday River in Maine and Bretton Woods which is located near Mt Washington.

Sunday River has said it hopes to open by mid-October.

High altitude ski areas in Western North America are also hoping to open in the first half of October.

Firstly, lucky you. Secondly, I have not been skiing there but I have researched ski areas around Rome. There appear to be half a dozen located 120-180km from the city. The three largest with the most modern infrastructure (6-10 lifts including some quad chairs etc) look to be Campo Felice (www.campofelice.it), Campitello Matese (www.campitello-matese.it) and Terminillo (www.monteterminillo.net). Whether any of them, or one of the smaller places (just with 5 or less drag lifts each) are open as early as late November I am not sure I'm afraid. I have old notes they open for the season in December but maybe if the weather is cold in Nov they would open earlier than that?

Interestingly the locals at all Scottish ski areas voted to stay in the UK except for the Glasgow indoor snow centre 'Snow Factor' (and the Glasgow dry slopes). Snow Factor offered free skiing on referendum day (without any nationality requirements).

The Pitztal glacier, which operates Austria's highest lifts, will open for an eight month 2014-15 ski season at 8.30am tomorrow. The Wildspitzbahn and Brunnenkogel T Bar lift will be in operation to 1pm daily through the remainder of September.

The Kaunertal glacier will also be reopening with 4 km of groomed slopes open served by the Weisseefernerlift I & II and Falgin lifts. It too will initially be open until 1pm daily, right through to spring 2015.

A third Austrian glacier area at Solden, which will stage the first of the northern hemispheres 2014-15 Season World Cup races next month, is also scheduled to open about 4km of terrain. It reports a glacier snow depth of 35cm with the last new snow falling last weekend.

In Italy, Val Senales opened at 7.30am this morning for the start of its 20-14-15 season. It reports a 55cm base.

The four centres joins the Stubai glacier near Innsbruck which opened last weekend.
The next big opening weekend comes in a fortnight's time on October 4th when the first areas open in France and North America.

Tignes is scheduled to open in France on that day, along with Timberline in Oregon, the first North American area likely to open for winter 2014-15. Another Austrian area, the Kitzsteinhorn at Kaprun says it will open on that weekend at the earliest, subject to snow conditions.

Several areas have been open in the Alps all summer and continue to be. They include Saas Fee and Zermatt in Switzerland, Hintertux in Austria and Passo Stelvio in Italy.

Michael Schumacher has returned to his family home on the shore of Lake Geneva in Switzerland, nearly nine months after his accident on the slopes of Meribel where he suffered a severe head injury and was placed in a lengthy induced coma.

Little is known of his condition and his management team and keeping tight lipped, saying only that there continued to be positive signs, but that his recovery will be long and difficult.

They did however dismiss media reports that substantial alterations to his home had been made to his home in order to accommodate the invalid motor racing star as untrue.

Schumacher spent nearly six months in hospital in Grenoble following the accident in late December before being moved to the University Hospital in Lausanne in June.

With little to report, the world's media reported to be camped outside, are reporting on how many of them are camped outside, reporting on the police being called to try to stop them from being intrusive, and tutting about a Russian TV company's attempt to do a 'live broadcast.'

With resorts like Hintertux and Zermatt open year round, there's no official start date to winter 2014-15 BUT all the ski areas that were open for summer skiing in 2014 have now closed (the last of them, Cervinia, last weekend) and tomorrow (Saturday 13th September) the Stubai Glacier has announced it is opening for the 2014-15 ski season, with a 50cm base. The picture below was taken of slope preparation yesterday.

Meanwhile there's was heavy snow in parts of Western Canada in the middle of the week with pictures appearing on social media (as above) and palpably raising skier excitement levels. Panorama in BC posted pictures taken at the top of the mountain showing the snow apparently lying a foot deep in places. The first Canadian ski areas are aiming to open at Banff from Friday 31st October.

Last September big snowfalls in Washington state led to a few areas opening early for a few days and ski resorts in Scandinavia opened early too.

There have been smaller snowfalls across Western North America and in Colorado areas like Arapahoe basin and Loveland, among the highest ski areas in the world, expect to start snowmaking efforts imminently with the aim of opening by mid-October.

An unusually late Easter and challenging snow conditions across much of the northern Alps, resulted in a decline in the ski market of 3.6% last winter (from just under 900,000 in 2012/13 to 867,700 in 2013/14) according to the Crystal Ski Industry Report which was published this week.

The drop in the number of Brits heading to the slopes last season is a set back after a small rise in the market the previous season, which had followed four years of successive drops in business which had seen the UK market decline by nearly a third on its 2007-8 season peak.

The independent travel sector showed the biggest fall (by 5.8% to 253,400 skiers, down from 269,000) with some low cost carriers reducing their flight capacity to ski destinations and curtailing their programmes at the end of the season. The tour operator sector also saw total volumes decrease slightly (by 2.8% to 500,500 skiers) as fewer multiple trips were taken during the mild temperatures of January and March as well as the late Easter holiday period.

The signs for 2014-15 are good, however, Crystal Ski Holidays believe,
"The Winter Olympics significantly raising the profile of snow sports in the UK, and indoor ski centres continue to report increased visitor numbers suggesting an uplift in interest for snowsports which will be further boosted by a recovering economy and an earlier Easter break," said a company statement.

France continues to be the most popular country despite seeing a decline of 1.3%, taking a 33.5% share of holidaymakers last season. Switzerland had a slight resurgence with a 1% increase taking share of the market to 6.5%.

Andorra, Italy and Scandinavia each increased market share by 0.2% whereas Austria, Bulgaria and USA/Canada lost 0.2% market share each. The small countries sector stayed stable at 2% market share.