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The FIS World Cup Men's Downhill at Lake Louise in BC, Canada has been dropped from the 2023-24 race calendar this coming winter.

Doubts over the future of the event, the traditional start of the speed racing season for decades, had been circulating for several years.

The FIS had initially listed the 2023 races to be staged between 22-26 November, but they've now gone from the official race calendar.

The issue is funding, with national racing body Alpine Canada confirmed Friday. In a media statement the organisation's chief executive officer Therese Brisson said they'd run out of time to secure the money needed.

"We've been working with various stakeholders since last season to try to find solutions and despite some progress, we have run out of time to confirm the funding early enough to execute the event for the upcoming 2023-24 season,"

However she hoped this was not the end.

"[We] will turn our attention to identifying solutions for the 2024-25 season and beyond," she said.

Lake Louise had been due to lose its place as season-opener for speed events last autumn, when a new race course created across the Swiss-Italian border between Zermatt and Cervinia, also the world's highest race course, had been due to stage a new season opener earlier in the autumn. Those races had to be cancelled though due to lack of snow due to climate change so the Lake Louise race was again the 22-23 season opener after all. This year the new Zermatt – Cervinia course again hopes to run the opening races in early November, conditions permitting.

Saas Fee has opened its glacier summer ski area for its 2023 season and this year says the slopes are open to everyone.

Last summer the centre was initially opened just to race reams for training as there was severely limited terrain due to the exceptionally hot soring and summer in the Alps.

The exceptionally hot weather is now back, but spring 2023 was much cooler so the glacier is in far better shape than a year ago.

Saas Fee operates up to 20km of slopes in summer and a popular terrain park, it's one of the largest remaining summer ski centres in the Alps.

Currently it reports 13.8km of slopes open on day one and a 250cm base. Lifts open from 6.25am with a day pass costing 79 Swiss Francs for an adult aged over 16, or 48 Swiss Francs for a 7-16 yar old.

The resort will now offer snowsports through to spring 2024, conditions permitting, in one of the world's longest ski seasons, over eight months. Some argue it is the first to open for the new season each year, although Hintertux and Zermatt try to never close. Passo Stelvio in Italy and Tignes in France are also currently open but will close before the end of the year (before the end of the month in Tignes' case).

A TV show based on the 2023 civil court case between Gwyneth Paltrow and retired doctor Terry Sanderson, resulting from a ski collision three years earlier at Deer Valley in Utah has been announced by Discovery+.

The civil case was brought by the retired optometrist against Paltrow following a decision that there was no criminal case to answer on the 2016 collision on the slopes. Sanderson sought $300,000 from the actress, alleging she causing him permanent traumatic brain injury. Paltrow counter-sued Sanderson for $1 plus legal costs, claiming he caused the accident. The court was played out in worldwide media in late March and early April earlier this year. Paltrow won.

The show is being made by production company Optomen, whose previous programmes include "Johnny vs Amber" and "Kim vs Kanye: The Divorce").

Clare Laycock, SVP Head of Content, Networks & Streaming at WBD UK & Ireland, said: "We're excited about the breadth of this latest slate of commissioned programmes, across discovery+ and linear, which span our viewers' most-loved genres."

image credit Andrea Raffin 2011

The direct rail connection between London and the French Alps won't run this winter, unless a new operation emerges.

The direct Eurostar 'ski train' service was cancelled before the pandemic, but had been replaced by a charter service to selected resorts run by a company operated by Travelski, an off-shoot of the huge Compagnie des Alpes group, which runs ski areas served by the train.

These include the Paradiski area above Bourg St Maurice and the 3 Valleys above Moutiers.

You could no longer just buy a rail ticket however, only a package including accommodation, transfers to the selected resort and lift pass.

Compagnie des Alpes said at the time the move was in part to try to get more people to travel by rail and cut their CO2 emissions.

Travelski have said today that they'll still run rail services to the Alps, but that skiers will need to change trains at Lille.

Here's the statement:

Following some recent speculation with regards to the train-inclusive packages, Travelski would like to confirm that the Travelski express (direct Eurostar service) from St Pancras to Moutiers and Bourg St Maurice will regrettably not operate this winter.

However, we are currently working on a Travelski express train-inclusive package which will run from St Pancras to the French Alps, with a change of train at Lille Europe. The service is expected to run for a short season, leaving London Saturday daytime and returning Sunday daytime. We will announce the precise dates and details as soon as these are concluded.

CEO of Travelski, Guillaume de Marcillac, comments "We continue to work with our friends at Eurostar and we are pleased that we will be once again be offering a train inclusive package from London to the French Alps. Of course, Travelski still have many excellent value packages available for the UK skier via our website and our English language call centre."

Work on a long-planned dry ski slope project at Par near St Austell in Cornwall which got the green light from local councillors with planning permission granted last autumn is currently being delayed from commencing while archaeological checks are carried out.

A spokesperson for the Altitude Snow Park explained,

"When we achieved planning a number of pre-commencement conditions were required before we could start building Altitude. These reports have taken a while to pull together and we still have a slight delay with archaeology! Although minor findings were recorded when we completed the application, from excavation on site, we are now required to excavate further (and extensively) which is delaying the build. We hope to have this resolved as soon as possible and move forward. We will get there! The journey continues!!"

The plans for the dry ski slope, to be called the Altitude Snow Park, were first announced five years ago, but the landowners since had to solve multiple planning issues before finally getting approval.

"The biggest ski and snowboard slope in the South West" the centre will feature beginner, intermediate and advanced level runs.

The development, on what is currently agricultural land, will also include six homes, a visitor centre, additional car parking and the developers also plan to create a play area for the adjacent school. There would also be a seasonal grass toboggan area, outdoor play areas and picnic spots.

easyJet are to recommence flights between London Southend and Geneva this winter, a route last operated in 2020. The service was initially suspended due to the pandemic, but did not resume last winter.

The service will resume on December 16th, 2023 and run twice-weekly on Saturdays and Wednesdays throughout the winter, with launch fares starting from £22.99 one way, excluding baggage.

easyJet say that between 2013 and 2020 they carried a total of 570,000 passengers between London Southend and Geneva, the most in the final year the service operated before the pandemic, 94,000 in 2019.

"We now offer more choice and great value for customers travelling with us by further expanding our services at Southend. We are delighted to be serving our customers a wider range of destinations this winter, all with low fares and the warm welcome our crew are famous for," said easyJet's UK Country Manager, Ali Gayward.

The well-known Transarc people-mover that links Arc 1800 and Col de la Chal at 2600 m is currently being upgraded at Les Arcs, increasing the comfort and capacity on the route as well as the speed of the trip.

The current Leitner-built Transarc lift opened in 1991 with 15 person cabins travelling at 5 metres per second.

The new lift will have 10 person cabins but ascend much faster, at 7 metres per second.

It means capacity on the route will increase by nearly a quarter from 3,000 to 3,700 people per hour and the nearly 3.5km lift will be faster, 9 minutes instead of the 13 minutes of the old lift.

The new lift will also use about 10% less energy and have 600m of photovoltaic panels integrated into the structure of the lift stations to generate green power.

Work has already taken place in Arc 1800 at the Transarc's base with new escalators and a lift making it easier to access the base.

A major snowstorm is getting underway in Australia and is expected to last for several days and deliver up to half-a-metre of snowfall.

It's the latest and potentially biggest yet in a series of storms over the past month that have set the country's ski resorts up well for the start of the 2023 season. Most centres already have 50-75% of their slopes open with several announcing they have all their lifts operating for the first time since the pre-pandemic 2019 season.

The new snowfall is being delivered by cold air arriving from the west, and comes as eastern Australia enters school holidays season. Initially though the weather across the New South Wales and Victorian Alps this weekend may not be to welcoming, with accompanying gale force winds of up to 100 kph expecting to mean blizzard conditions.

About half of the snowfall is expected to arrive during the most intense period of the storm through about 12 hours on Saturday, 8th July.

Snowfall levels are above average with upper slope depths of 60-80cm, now likely to go above the metre mark with the fresh snowfall.