J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by J2SkiNews

Snow is continuing to fall in the Pyrenees with some resorts now reporting that they've had more than two metres of snowfall in the last three weeks, having received less than that in total through the previous first three months of the season.

As a result, ski areas are finally opening most of their terrain, having previously been limited by lack of snow cover and temperatures often too warm for snowmaking.

The region's biggest ski area, Andorra's Grandvalira, which includes the resorts of Pas de la Casa and Soldeu El Tarter, is more than 90% open for the first time this season, having reached 199km of its 215km of slopes open this weekend. There are 73 or 74 lifts also currently operational.

The area is due to be open for five more weeks, with the Arcalis freeride area announcing it will stay open an extra week to April 14th thanks to the recent snowfall.

The snowfall is expected to ease over the next few days with more usual springlike conditions from the middle of this coming week.

Australia's Hotham ski area has announced an improved learning area for the upcoming 2024 season.

Welcome Bunderool! Hotham's first beginner-only terrain re-imagines the beginner experience at Victoria's highest mountain village ahead of the 2024 snow season

The resort's first ever beginner-only terrain, will be serviced by a new carpet named after the local Gunaikurnai people's name for "hill covered by snow:" Bunderoolwill.

"Bunderool carpet is part of an ongoing commitment to improve the experience for beginners on the mountain, alongside improving the safety of all skiers and snowboarders," said Tina Burford, Hotham's VP + GM. "It's also a reflection of our ongoing commitment to our Be Inclusive value – both with the naming of the carpet and with welcoming beginners to the sport."

The area is located behind the Hotham Central building with the aim of allowing a seamless experience close to rental collection and lift ticket services. The area was previously used for the Basin Terrain Park and Hotham are keen to reassure park users some facilities will remain there while a new improved park will also be created elsewhere on the mountain, depending on where the best snow conditions are.

"First-time adult skiers or snowboarders will now be able to take a beginner-only lesson and enjoy the thrill of their first ski or snowboard experience in a safe, more accessible, and more approachable environment." A resort statement explains adding, "Benefits of the new carpet include helping to ease congestion at the bottom of the Summit chairlift while helping to improve the safety and guest experience of all Hotham skiers and riders. Due to its sheltered, premium natural snow location, this carpet will provide a reliable location for beginners during even adverse weather conditions."

"It's not often beginners experience the heights and spectacular mountain views from their very first lesson, but at Hotham our village is perched close to the summit and our new carpet is positioned to capitalise on these amazing views," said Tina. "It's also close to all the fantastic apres-ski experiences that are a huge part of an introduction to our sport."
This is the first lift infrastructure named with guidance from the Gunaikurnai Land and Waters Aboriginal Corporation and a special naming ceremony is being planned for the start of the snow season.

Australia's 2024 ski season is expected to start on Saturday 8th June ahead of a public holiday on Monday 10th June to celebrate King Charles III's birthday. Some years some areas open early if there are good early snow conditions.

A huge four-day long snowstorm that led to "Do not travel!" warnings in California and completely closed most of the states ski areas through the start of this week has finally blown through.

Slopes are starting to reopen and the snowfall stats are in with Sugar Bowl ski area reporting the most - 3.2 metres (10.7 feet) of fresh snow over the four days.

Most areas posted at least two metres of snowfall and several have jumped to top the North American snow depth table, with Mammoth Mountain now posting the most in the continent at nearly 4.5 metres (15 feet).

The snowfall was accompanied by very strong winds, the most powerful gusts recorded at Palisades hitting 180mph meaning blizzard conditions. It also meant some exposed areas were scoured of fresh snow, others buried in drifts many metres deep, including in some cases, entire lifts.

Resorts are now cautiously reopening terrain and roads are also opening to the mountains and lost power supplies restored. Besides avalanche danger resorts are warning excited skiers against the risk of tree-well suffocation, a deep-snow issue when skiers fall head first into voids that develop in deep snow near tree trunks. The advice is to never ski alone or out of sight of your skiing buddies.

All the snowfall comes in a season that started poorly in the Western US, blamed on a 'strong El Nino' system from The Pacific which was supposed to mean little snowfall all season.

Cîme Caron, at 3195m one of the highest points of the world's largest ski area, Les 3 Vallées, is to become home to a new building incorporating a wine cellar.

Europe's highest major resort, Val Thorens, which lies 900 vertical metres below, has already begun transforming the Cîme Caron area and is starting work on the new building, expected to open late next year.

The new building will link up with the existing pedestrian tunnel and will feature a panoramic terrace, bar and restaurant as well as the wine cellar.

From Cîme Caron there are 360° panoramic views of more than 1,000 peaks in the French, Italian and Swiss Alps, with Mont Blanc as a backdrop. Mont Brequin, La Meije, the Aiguilles d'Arves, the Chavière and Bouchet glaciers area mong the sights to be seen.

In 1982 Val Thorens' SETAM lift company built what was at the time the highest and biggest cable car in the world, as well as one of the most expensive projects in the history of ski lifts!

It's part of a series of lifts taking skiers from 876m altitude in the valley up 2,310 vertical metres to Cime Caron. The top can also be reached by lifts from Orelle in the '4th Valley'.

"The new facility will allow visitors to take the time to enjoy the beautiful 360° panorama featuring Mont Blanc," a Val Thorens spokesperson said.

The world's most northerly major ski area, Riksgränsen, has announced it will reopen for skiing and boarding for three days over midsummer this June.

The resort, located 250km north of the Arctic Circle, has traditionally opened for Midsummer but in recent years, due to the pandemic and climate change impacting snow cover, has not opened for midsummer so often. When it does do so, it is usually booked up far in advance.

Along with skiing or boarding under the Midnight sun, guests will be able to enjoy traditional Scandinavian midsummer activities including dancing around the equivalent of a maypole and dining on herring and potatoes when the resort will re-opens from June 20-23, 2024.

Although widely regarded as Europe and the world's most northerly ski resort, there area bout a dozen ski areas at more northerly latitudes, although they are all smaller with just one or two draglifts in most cases.

Riksgränsen was the only ski area that remained open through all waves of the pandemic, arguing in spring 2020 that it had adequate in-house medical facilities to cope with any outbreak of the pandemic there.

Riksgränsen opened for its 2024 ski season on February 24th and will remain open to later May, closing for a month before re-open for the Midsummer ski. 24-hour daylight begins there in early May and the centre offers skiing and boarding under the Midnight sun on several evenings a week for the final few weeks of its season.

A rare new half pipe - of superpipe dimensions - has opened at the Corvatsch ski area in the Swiss Engadin region, above the ski resorts of St Moritz and Silvaplana.

Located in the Corvatsch Park at the Murtèl middle station, it sits 2,700 metres above sea level, is 170 metres long, has 7-metre high walls. It's one of the largest superpipes on the planet and has opened against a trend of resorts closing halfpipes to focus on less effort intensive terrain park features.

The honour of the first test run in the pipe went to Swiss snowboarder David Hablützel, who showed just how much style the riders have who commented,

"The orientation of the halfpipe is brilliant because it faces north, which means you always have the sun from behind and there's never any glare when you are doing your tricks. That's a huge advantage, and one you won't find anywhere else. What's more, both walls are perfectly exposed to the sun and the entire pipe is bathed in sunshine at noon which makes it really cool."

Building a superpipe is an art that very few shapers in the world have mastered to perfection. Every degree of slope change and every centimetre of the walls is important and has an influence on the rider flight phase.
Carlo Rusterholz, who is responsible for the design and shape of the pipe together with Kobi Würsch from Corvatsch Park, explains:

"For me, it started in mid-January after around 20.000 m3 of snow was produced for the pipe. The technical snow is mixed with the natural snow, which is important for its quality. It took me around 250 machine hours to get the pipe looking like it does today. And from now on until the end of the season, I'll be working on it between 4-6 hours a day."

The pipe has opened ahead of the 2025 FIS Snowboard, Freestyle and Freeski World Championships in the Engadin. In the meantime the pipe is now open to everyone.

A number of Californian ski areas have announced they won't open today as a massive storm which began on Thursday continues to intensify.

America's National Weather service has issued a severe weather warning predicting up to 12 feet of snowfall by the end of Sunday, accompanied by winds as strong as 100 mph.

Most ski areas in the state say they'll close today or may have very limited operations after a late
opening.

"Due to the large snowfall totals we are expecting (up to 50 inches in the Palisades base area in the next 24 hours) and the high rate of snowfall (up to 5 inches per hour) we have made the decision to keep Alpine closed for tomorrow, Friday, March 1st," a statement from The Palisades explained.

The storm is the latest in a series that started in February from the Pacific. February snowfall totals were more than 11 feet at resorts like Mammoth.



The snowfall has arrived after a very warm and dry end to 2023 which saw limited terrain open for the key Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year holidays in California and across much of North America. This was blamed on a 'very strong El Nino system' from the Pacific which was predicted to last all season and write off the entire season for snowfall. However, that has not been the case for the past 5-6 weeks in most parts of the continent.

The Pacific Northwest corner had continued to miss out until recently but it too has had good, if not so huge, snowfalls over the past week or two.

Northstar is pictured on Thursday.

With some ski areas seeing over a metre of snowfall in the Pyrenees over the past seven days, resorts in the region are reporting transformed conditions for the final quarter of the season.

Many resorts have announced they're finally planning to open all or most of their terrain, with Formigal (pictured above), which has had only about 30% of its runs open all winter, saying it expects to have the most open in the Pyrenees, 140km, available this coming weekend. Larger areas have not yet said how much they'll open though.

Until now, the Pyrenees have unfortunately had one of their worst seasons on record with all-tine record high temperatures in December and January meant little natural snowfall and not much opportunity fir snowmaking either.

The bigger resorts with higher terrain typically managed to open 50-75% of their terrain, peaking with Baqueira Beret, Spain 's largest, reaching 130km open in January, but it had since slipped back below 100km while many other smaller, lower areas had only very limited runs open or were closed completely.

The Pyrenees biggest area, Grandvalira, encompassing all of Andorra's centres, peaked at about 65% of its terrain open. It has reported 70cm of snowfall in the last 72 hours and over a metre of snow in the past week. It says it will have 180km of slopes open this coming weekend.