J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by J2SkiNews

Copper Mountain

After a quiet week on the world's ski slopes many of the northern hemisphere's top ski areas are reporting heavy snowfall in the past 24 hours.
The snow news is particularly welcome in the French Alps, where conditions below 2,000m were distinctly Springlike at the end of last week with skiers dining outdoors in T shirts at 1,000m altitude resorts and the snow stodgy and sticky.
However today's falls of 20-30cm (8 – 12 inches) has changed things dramatically for the better with Isola 2000 and Risoul in the Southern Alps, where Serre Chevalier clocked up 40cm, right up to Avoriaz and Chatel in the north reporting big falls.
The snow is not just in France though, Courmayeur and La Thuile in the Aosta Valley and another Italian resort, Madesimo, also doing well.
Several resorts in the Spanish Pyrenees have reported similar falls - good news again as cover had thinned dramatically after the promising start with heavy falls in late November and early December there.
However Scandinavia, which has seen continuing heavy snow through the first few days of 2011 while the snow stopped falling elsewhere, continues to see the most snow, with coastal Voss in Norway reporting another 40cm and Hemsedal also accumulating more snow. On our side of the north sea the latest snow in Scotland has left conditions good in Blighty still too.
The snow news has continued to be good in North America. Resorts on the East and West Coasts have also been reporting good snowfalls in the past 24 hours. In Colorado Vail, Copper and Aspen have all had more good snow news – with Aspen reporting the biggest fall of 30cm. On the East Coast resorts have reported up to 38cm of new snow, with Sugarbush claiming the biggest fall. Stowe and Smugglers Notch are also looking nice and powdery!

Although Kicking Horse stole the headlines for new steep runs in British Columbia, and indeed Canada, this winter, a second BC resort, Sun Peaks has also got some new lines to try with more glade runs and some steep chutes.
Sun Peaks is home to some of Canada's steepest and also has a strong competitive ethos, being home to the country's most famous ski racer, Nancy Greene as well as a host of speed skiing competitions.
It's Challenger slope is one of Canada's steepest groomed trails and this winter offers many new steep lines thanks to summer grooming of sectors that had become overgrown and thus unskiable.
Those who enjoy tree skiing will also find new gladed runs through the subalpine in Crystal Bowl. In addition the Lonesome Fir Glades on Sundance Mountain is one of 14 runs that has also benefited from summer work. This summer work has effectively increased the resort's skiable terrain, and allows each run to open with less snow earlier in the season than before.

Lech

The longest ski race in the world returns to Lech in Austria in mid-January.
The White Ring, being staged for the sixth time, covers 22 kilometres of piste and 5,500 difference in altitude in Lech-Zürs in the Arlberg region and takes place this winter on 15th January.
The fun race, on blue grade trails, begins at the top of the Rufikopf cable cars above Lech and heads off down piste 38. The first drag lift at Schuttboden takes competitors to the start of the second piste, 38A, and then chair 6 to the top of piste 3 whicch leads to the valley road crossing between Lech and Zürs.
Now across the valley, chairs 4 then 2 take racers to the village of Zug from where two more lifts take you to the Kriegerhorn and the long piste 34 down past Oberlech to the race finish in central Lech for an evening of partying.
Various age and ability classes take part and a charity donation is made for every competitor by the organisers. Last year's winner took just under 45 minutes to complete the course.

Cortina

Cortina in Italy is offering more activities on wheels on the snow this winter for those fancying a change from downhill skiing and boarding during their stay.
Firstly there's the opportunity to try mountain biking on the snow with the resort's new K-track kit.
The kit transforms a mountain bike into a snow-bike capable of tackling the resort's snow-covered slopes.
Access to the slopes will vary with most of the slope access taking place during the popular Cortina Snowkite Competition in March.
Secondly the resort's new Fiames Snow Ice Driving Experience gives Cortina's guests the chance to drive, learn and hopefully just have fun in complete safety.
You can learn the techniques of sports driving or improve your driving skills in wintry conditions on the new ice-track located in Fiames.
Training is offered by professional driving instructor Franco Murani on the 2km long ice track. The turns and curves on the route poses a range of technical challenges for the driver with rental cars and other vehicles available to try on the track.

Night Skiing in Formigal

Moonlit Skiing in Spain
Like slow skiing zones and skier cross courses, moonlit skiing seems to be a growing trend in ski areas across Europe.
The latest place where you can ski beneath the lunar rays is Formigal in the Spanish Pyrenees which will offer moonlit skiing on three evenings this winter.
Formigal joins resorts in the Alps offering moonlit ski nights including Les 2 Alpes, Saas Fee and Zermatt.
In Formigal the event takes place next Tuesday, January 4th then on February 12th and finally for this season on March 19th.
In Formigal moonlit skiing will be offered on the Rio piste from 8.30pm onwards. After a glass of mulled wine (known in Spanish as vino caliente) you will be escorted down the slope in a group by the local ski school, using hand held torches to light the way if the moon isn't bright enough on the night.
At the bottom you can enjoy a glass of champagne at Marchica with an accompanying firework display and live music performance.

The recent huge snowfalls in the eastern US my have caused the latest round of travel nightmares, but they're also great news for the busiest week of the season in New England, so long as skiers and boarders can reach the slopes.
Resorts are reporting up to four feet (120cm) of new snow has fallen in 48 hours, with most reporting two to three feet (60-90cm) of snow and several over a metre.
Cannon Mountain in New Hampshire has reported the most new snow with 1.22m according to a table published by www.skiinfo.co.uk. Newarby bretton woods along with Sugarloaf in Maine both report more than a metre of new snow,
The big falls come at the end of a cold December which had already allowed the region, the world's most extensively equipped for snowmaking, to build up a good base.
The falling snow in urban areas also gets people thinking about hitting the ski slopes.
However the ski areas will be hoping that roads can be cleared quickly. In the week before Christmas it was on the West Coast of the US that huge snowfalls were reported at Mammoth Mountain in California, but despite receiving more than three metres (ten feet) of new snow, the famous resorts which currently has a deeper base than any other ski area on the planet at over 5.5 metres (18 feet) saw visitor numbers drop by 75% in the immediate aftermath of the extreme weather as visitors struggled to reach the slopes.

CairnGorm Mountain piste machine drivers Tom Moodie and Adam MacInnes with Santa(aka Les Andean)

All five ski areas are now open in Scotland following Glencoe's opening on Thursday, December 23rd. The only area that hadn't opened already has intermediate and advanced level terrain now open.
There's extra Christmas excitement at CairnGorm ski area above Aviemore where the staff took delivery of a new Pisten Bully 600 grooming machine which replaces an older machine in the operator's fleet of vehicle.
The new machine is also the only one in the UK with a winch attachment, that means it can be anchored by cable to a fixed point on the mountainside, allowing it to groom Britain's steepest groomed slopes in safety – without risk of it sliding off down the slope.
The machine has arrived just in time to be used for the benefit of Christmas holidaymakers who can ski Cairngorm's slopes daily from now on – except Christmas day itself when, in common with Scotland's other four ski areas, the resort is closed for the day.
Cairngorm is hoping for another record-breaking winter after last season, which lasted for nearly eight months and saw the greatest visitor numbers for nearly 15 years.
So far this winter – which has been underway for a month at CairnGorm already - in Early snow cover has meant that already this season over 14,000 skiers have taken to the slopes at the resort with many more expected over the next two weeks. The resort has also arranged for a greatly enhanced public bus service to operate from Aviemore to the ski resort with buses operating three times an hour form early until late from Boxing Day until 9th January. There is good snow cover all over the mountain and on Christmas Eve all uplift was operating.

Mammoth

California has been hit by 'historic' volumes of snow in the past week that has taken its resorts up to the deepest snow levels in the world at present, according to independent snow reporting agency Skiinfo.
Mammoth Mountain has seen the most remarkable accumulations - with 361cm (12 feet) falling in the past week, a metre (3.3 metres) of it in the past 24 hours alone, giving it the greatest snow depth in the world at 457cm (over 15 feet). It has overtaken the glacier ski slopes of the Pragelato ice field above Passo Tonale in Italy which measures year round snow accumulation of more than four metres to often hold the number one spot outside the main season.
It's been only slightly less spectacular at Lake Tahoe to the north where most of the rest of the resorts make up the rest of the top 230 snow recipients of the past seven days, receiving up to 2.8m (over nine feet) each. They report this is the latest in a series of storms that have delivered nearly 20 feet of snow to the region over the past few months, they're crediting the 'La Nina' effect off the Pacific.
Elsewhere in Western North America other resorts are reporting good conditions too. Steamboat in Colorado says it has just psssed the 150 inches (375cm of snow fallen) mark and in Banff more than 8,000 acres are now open in time for Christmas at its three areas.