J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by J2SkiNews

Australian ski areas are reporting fresh snowfall, for many their third falls in a week, bringing to an end a period of warmer, drier weather which dominated through the latter half of July and start of August.

Selwyn ski area had been forced to close its skiing for lack of snow several weeks ago but now says it expects to re-open its ski slopes tomorrow thanks to the new snow, which is continuing to fall.

Other ski areas are celebrating the new snow too. Thredbo (pictured above today) reporting 10cm and there were similar accumulations at Hotham, Perisher and others.

"This weekend will be a fantastic time at Falls Creek for skiers and boarders of all levels," said Betony Pitcher, Falls Creek Ski Lifts' Marketing Manager. "It's going to be plenty of fun in wide open terrain with fresh powder turns the pick of the day! Our grooming team has been working hard throughout the night to get the mountain ready to ride, with the fresh flakes giving our runs an extra bit of fun."

Most resorts have 60-80% of their terrain open and there's more snowfall forecast.

A growing number of leading North American ski areas have published their intended 23-24 season opening dates this Fall, so long as mother nature plays ball.

November 10th looks set to be a big day with California's Mammoth Mountain, Alberta's Lake Louise as well as Breckenridge and Vail in Colorado all planning to open that day.

Nowhere has really confirmed an opening date before then but several will hope to open in October or earlier in November. They include Arapahoe Basin, Copper Mountain, Loveland and Keystone in Colorado, then north of the border Mt Norquay, Sunshine and Nakiska in Alberta, Canada.

They'll be followed a week later by California's Heavenly and the largest ski area in the US at Park City Mountain are targeting 17th November for their opening day.

North America's largest resort Whistler Blackcomb in BC, Canada, will open on the 23rd November.

Loveland say they plan to start snowmaking at the end of next month.

The 22-23 US ski season only ended with Timberline closing some 10 months after the first areas had opened the previous fall in Mid-October in Colorado and the Midwest.

Three complex legal cases that related to the original design and construction of the Cairngorm funicular railway in the 1990s and early 2000s have reached an out-of-court settlement.

The legal cases began when government development agency Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE), which owns Cairngorm Estate and commissioned the funicular, was forced to shut it down in 2018, 17 years after it opened after a construction cost of £19.5 million, after safety inspections found issues with concrete track supports.

The closure eventually lasted more than four years with the funicular finally returning to service in January this year, following a four-year programme of inspection, design and engineering works at a cost of around £25m bringing the total spend on capital works connected to the funicular to around £45m over the past 25 years.

Under the terms of the out-of-court settlement, HIE is receiving a total sum of £11m.

HIE had been pursuing legal action in the Court of Session against construction company Galliford Try Infrastructure Limited and designer A.F. Cruden Associates Limited. But the settlement means the cases will not proceed to a court proof hearing, which had been scheduled to begin this month.

HIE was also seeking payment relating to guarantees issued by Natural Assets Investments Ltd (NAIL), which was the parent company of previous operator CairnGorm Mountain Ltd (CML), and from NAIL's main shareholder.

Stuart Black, chief executive of HIE, said: "We are pleased to have reached this settlement, which enables us to recover a significant amount of public funding and brings closure to these long-standing matters."

Nevada's Lee Canyon resort has announced a $7 million spend on resort upgrades for the coming winter.

The ski area, located just 45 minutes from the infamous Las Vegas Strip will invest the bulk of the cash in a new quad chairlift. There'll also be increased parking and a new conveyor lift to for beginners.

The spend comes after a bumper snow season, with more snowfall than in any prior season in the resort's six decade history and resulting increased business last season.

"Lee Canyon is seeing more visitors, first-time and youth skiers, and snowboarders. Collectively, these investments also mean we can better serve the needs of those populations, especially families whose kids are skiing free with our Power Kids pass," commented Dan Hooper, Lee Canyon's General Manager.

The new chairlift will serve beginner and intermediate terrain including Foxtail Alley, Limber Pine Lane, and Bonanza Ridge on the mountain's southeast side.

Image credit Tomas del Coro

Italy's Val Senales, which usually offers autumn glacier skiing from early September, has announced that it won't be opening for the 23-24 season until December.

However unlike Tignes in France, which appears to have similarly decided to give up on autumn skiing, this may be an autumn 2023 only decision.

Val Senales is working on major upgrades to the cable car used to access the slopes. First opened in 1975, the cable car will see its cabins replaced and the top and bottom stations of the lift renovated and modernised.

Work began at the end of last season on 17th April with the cable car cabins removed a month later. The revamped lift and ski area are expected to open shortly before Christmas.

The family that has run Jackson hole ski area for more than three-decades has announced that they will be handing the reins over to several more local families who have themselves been involved in operating Jackson Hole Mountain Resort (JHMR) for many years.

The move goes against the usual North American trend for the country's famous resorts of selling out to one of the large multi-resort groups, or to an investment house.

The Kemmerer family bought JHMR in 1992, and over the past three decades have overseen a total of $300 million in capital expenditure, including the replacement of all of the resort's ski lifts at one time or another.

Highlights have included construction of the new $31 million Aerial Tram in 2008 during the global financial crisis and building the Bridger Gondola and the Bridger Center in the winter of 1997/1998.

"The time has come to transition ownership of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. We take great pride in what JHMR has become and what it represents to the Jackson Hole community and the state of Wyoming," said Jay Kemmerer. "It is of utmost importance to me that the next ownership maintains the integrity and character of the mountain that we have worked so hard to build over the past three decades. There is no better fit for this ownership transition than Eric and Mike and their families, who share the same vision for the future of JHMR and its importance to our great community. I'm excited and proud to pass along this iconic, family-run ski resort to these two strong Jackson Hole families."

"Mike and I are honoured to have the opportunity to carry on the legacy of this world-class ski resort," said JHMR Board Member and new owner Eric Macy. "We want to thank everyone at JHMR in advance for their support as we begin this next stage and are committed to our ownership for decades. We appreciate all the hardworking employees and members of the Jackson Hole community who have played an integral part in building JHMR into the ski mountain we know and love today."

Timberline ski area in Oregon, the only ski area still open to the public for the 22-23 ski season in North America has announced that this coming Sunday 13th August will be its last day.

Timberline, which offers skiing and boarding on the Palmer permanent snowfield on Mt Hood, is usually the last area open in North America and often the only real choice in July and August.

This year however it had company from a number of resorts after huge winter snowfalls left the snow lying well into summer across Western US slopes. Mammoth Mountain only ended its 275 day season, its second longest ever, on Sunday 6th August.

Timberline says it has had over 700 inches (over 58 feet/nearly 18 metres) of snowfall this season but recent months have seen temperatures in the 70s/80s Fahrenheit, there's only a few miles of slopes open each morning and its base is greatly diminished with no official measure posted. Kit's terrain park is closed.

In good years in the past Timberline stayed open for skiing for around 11 months, closing after the US Labor day holiday at the start of September then opening for the next season the following month!

All eyes now turn to the start of the 23-24 ski season. A number of ski areas including Lake Louise and Mammoth have named November 10th, less than three months away, as their target opening dates while a number of high altitude resorts in Colorado as well as snowmakers in the Midwest will aim to open in October.

Loveland ski area in Colorado says they are 50 days away from their target snowmaking start date at the end of next month.

Two months into the southern hemisphere's 2023 ski season, Mt Ruapehu in New Zealand has posted the world's deepest snowpack at an open ski area.

The resort's Tūroa ski area hit 255cm (102") on Thursday, overtaking Switzerland's Saas-Fee which has been posting 250cm (100") since it opened for its 23-23 ski season a month ago.

Prior to that small glacier ski areas had been posting 3-4 metre bases, but that snow cover melted away quite quickly and all but one of the centres, it's base now down to q1.5 metres, has closed.

Until recently most ski areas in New Zealand's South Island had been struggling with warmer than average temperatures and limited cover, however Mt Ruapehu has been reporting what it says have been great snow conditions all winter.

Ironically though until recently the resort has only been able to open limited terrain due to issues finding staff to dig out and operate lifts because the resort had not know if it would be able to operate at all this year with it's operators going into administration following difficult years with the pandemic then little snowfall last winter. So there was a rush to recruit staff last minute when a temporary funding rescue package was announced by the New Zealand government.

The snowfall now should be good news for the southern hemisphere spring 2023 skiing with Mt Ruapehu's Tūroa and neighbouring Whakapapa often the last open, operating into late October and sometimes "Snowvember" in good snow years.