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Italian ski resort Cervinia will stage a combined ski and golf competition on July 8 and 9th.

The event, which has now been running each summer for 30 years, is a doubles competition that combines summer skiing (or snowboarding) and golf.

The skiing takes place on the Plateau Rosa glacier with a golf competition on the highest green in Italy at 2,050m in the Breuil basin, located 1,500 metres below.

"The white of the snow and green of the golf course are dominated by the unmistakable rocky pyramid of the Matterhorn creating a unique event in the world: the combined Snow & Golf," a resort spokesperson said.

The competition runs over two consecutive days and begins on the morning of Saturday 8 July with the giant slalom, open to skiers and snowboarders, on Piste Number 9 on the slopes of Plateau Rosa (3,500 metres). In the afternoon contestants move down to try the spectacular Cervinia golf course at 2,050 metres altitude. It's a PAR 69 course of 5,300 meters set in a stunning landscape with the competition enjoying the patronage of the Italian Golf Federation.

A second golf competition, will be the staged on the course on the Sunday using the 18-hole Stableford formula golf competition , "Four balls the best", the results of which will define the final places.

The competition rules require that at least one of the two members of each team takes part in the giant slalom, while the presence of both athletes on the green is mandatory.

The golf competition has no handicap limit and is open to members of the Italian Golf Federation or of a foreign federation.

Cervinia recently re-opened its lift connection to the year-round Matterhorn Glacier Paradise ski area shared with its Swiss neighbour Zermatt and the final stage of a series of gondolas and cable-cars connecting the two resorts over the Swiss border, the Alpine Crossing, is due to open on July 1st.

Ski areas in New Zealand are currently battling weather conditions that have forced two ski areas that had opened for the season to close again and others to delay opening until things get more wintery, but the country's largest resort Mt Ruapehu, is facing greater problems than the weather.

The centre, which claims to be the biggest in New Zealand by combing the ski stats of neighbouring but unliked
Turoa and Whakapapa ski fields, went into voluntary administration at the end of last winter, owing $45m (NZ) after pandemic seasons were followed by a winter with very little natural snow cover.

It had been hoped that offers by two parties to take on the two ski fields as separate ski areas for the 2023 season, expected to start imminently, were a way forward, but a meeting of creditors failed to agree to the two new operators taking over or to any alternative plan. As a result the centre's operators, Ruapehu Alpine Lifts, have now gone into liquidation.

The High Court has appointed PWC's John Fisk and Richard Nacey as liquidators who now need to try to sell the assets and deliver a future for the resort with the next few days and weeks seen as crucial.

"The time is ticking and we need to be able to give certainty to everyone, so that the season can open, and if the season doesn't open, then unfortunately one season closed probably means that it won't ever open again," John Fisk told local media.

However the neighbouring ski areas were thrown a $5m (NZ) lifeline by the government at the weekend when ministers stepped in to ensure the centre opens this season at least.
Regional Development Minister Kiri Allan said the Government will provide up to $5 million to the liquidators to ensure the mountain's 2023 ski season can go ahead.

"We've always been committed to finding a way to ensure the ski season on Mount Ruapehu goes ahead this year. Cabinet's decision today has solidified that," she said.

Ruapehu is estimated to generate 10% of the economy of the central North Island generating around $100 million per year and supporting hundreds of jobs.

Many of the major ski areas in Argentina and Chile are opening this weekend after fresh snowfall.

Ski areas in Patagonia reported some big pre-season snowfalls a month ago in May, but since then there had not been much fresh snow until the past few days and most of the continent's areas had remained closed while those of Australia and New Zealand bean opening over the past fortnight.

South America's largest ski area, Cerro Catedral near Bariloche in Argentina, as well as the world's most southerly, Carro Castor, down in the Tierra del Fuego region, are among those opening this weekend.

However another of Argentina's biggest resorts, Las Leñas, which opened for what is its 40th season last week and was one of those reporting over a metre of snowfall in the big May storm, has closed again while awaiting fresh snowfall.

In Chile, one of the continent's best known ski areas, Portillo, is among the resorts opening. It reported nearly half-a-metre of snowfall in 36 hours on Friday/Saturday to set it up well for opening weekend.

It's a slow start to the 2023 season in New Zealand due to borderline weather conditions for snow.

The first ski area in the country (and probably the southern hemisphere) to open on 10th June, Mt Hutt, has been forced to close again due to rain and now Treble Cone has decided to delay its planned opening.

However other areas opened on time, albeit with limited terrain, and one, The Remarkables, has managed to add some terrain.

The main issue has been slightly too mild temperatures and when there have been subzero temps skies have been cleared, so snowmaking can sometimes work but not enough.

Mt Hutt issued this statement on Monday, "Over the past 2 days we have received 40mm of rain and our relatively thin snowpack has taken a real hiding. This rain event has followed a warm period of marginal snowmaking temperatures which have significantly reduced the efficacy of our snowmaking system - particularly at lower elevations. We now have insufficient snow coverage in the base area to operate our lifts and will need to stay closed until conditions improve again."

"Treble Cone, being lower elevation at base, does need a bit more snow for opening so we're eagerly refreshing that forecast. The team is as ready as our riders, so we're playing an involuntary waiting game," Treble Cone's General Manager Laura Hedley commented as the resort announced a delay on its planned opening day on Saturday 24th June.

However the mood was more upbeat at The Remarkables (pictured above), which posted on Wednesday,

"We are over the moon to get Curvey Basin open for you all to enjoy. A massive shoutout to our snowmaking and grooming team for making this happen!"

Unfortunately there no great improvement in the weather forecast at present,

"Short term (more accurate) forecasts are not showing too much cooling until the end of the week and the longer range forecasts are also not particularly promising. Rest assured, as soon as the wet bulb temp hits our threshold for snowmaking we will be on-line and given the recent upgrades we have made, our situation could change in just a few days." Mt Hutt's statement concludes.

After 4️8 years of faithful services, the Airelles cable car at Font Romeu Pyrénées 2000 in the French Pyrenees is to be replaced by a new gondola.

The Altiservice company which runs the lifts estimates that the lift has carried 7,360,000 people over the past five decades, since its debut in 1975.

The new lift, due to go into service this Christmas 2023, will be a Leitner built gondola with 10-seat panoramic cabins.

The lift will have an uplift capacity of 2,400 skis per hour, triple the capacity of the old lift.
With a view to the growing summer tourism market, the cabins can also carry two mountain bikers and their bikes outside the ski season.

10-30cm of snowfall has been reported on mountains across the north western quarter of North America.

Timberline ski area on Mt Hood in Oregon, one of three ski areas still open for skiing and snowboarding on the continent was closed on Sunday and Monday due to the weather, which also brought low visibility. It reports 4 inches (10cm) of fresh snowfall while announcing.

"Lifts and terrain parks are closed today, due to poor weather conditions."

Heavier snowfall was reported further north, with 20-30cm (up to a foot) falling on the Banff and Jasper national parks in Alberta, Canada.

"Our wonderful, wacky weather brought us over 20 cm of snow on June 19th and it's still snowing. We look forward to another ski and snowboard season in Jasper which is only a little over 4 months away!" commented Brian Rode, Vice President of Marmot Basin ski area, pictured above.

Elsewhere a number of ski areas reported their summer operations, including biking and hiking were impacted by snowfall on trails.

Ski areas in Australia are reporting upto 30cm (a foot) of fresh snowfall has fallen on slopes in the past 48 hours and the snow is still falling.

Most of the country's ski areas are now open but with limited terrain after a mild start to June, however most are now talking about expanding what's available.

Len Dobell, General Manager of Operations at Hotham said:

"Hotham is looking stunning today and absolutely blanketed with 30cm of snow in the last 48 hours, with more on the way. The team are working hard on the ground here – we currently have 2 lifts open and expect to open more this week, it's a beautiful sight!"

Hotham and Falls Creek have had some heavy snow, with 20cm at Falls Creek and upwards of 30cm at Hotham in the last 48 hours, with no signs of stopping across resorts.

Perisher, the country's largest resort, noted it had all 177 snowguns firing as well as snow falling.

Thredbo is one of the few major ski areas that has not yet opened its slopes or announced an expected opening date, the newly reopened Selwyn Resort, closed for the last 3.5 years following a major bush fire, is also yet to open its slopes but reports 10cm of snowfall from the current storm so far and "more on the way".

Tignes is believed to have opened for its 2023 summer ski season, joining neighbouring Val d'Isere which opened last week for a four-week summer ski season. The two areas have 20km of slopes reported open.

Les 2 Alpes in to the final fortnight of a planned two-month summer ski season to the end of June, is also open giving France three areas currently open compared to one each in Austria (Hintertux), Italy (Passo Stelvio) and Switzerland (Zermatt).

It was a cool spring but temperatures are no climbing above freezing day and night on glaciers with lows around +1C, highs art around +10C at 3,000m, the freezing point up around 4,000m.

Tignes had posted the deepest snow in Europe for much of the 22-23 winter season with the snow depth peaking at around 5 metres in early spring and the season ending in early May with the snow depth still around 4 metres and the snow still falling. It appears to have lost a metre or so of that snow depth in the intervening six weeks however and opens with a reported 2.7m lying. That's the second-deepest of the six glacier ski areas currently open in the Alps, behind year-round Hintertux in Austria reporting 315cm lying there.

Summer ski seasons have tended to get shorter and shorter and end altogether in some areas across the Alps over the past few decades due to climate change. Austria's Dachstein glacier was the latest to stop summer skiing and indeed Alpine skiing altogether, earlier this year.

Tignes was formerly open every day of the year, then aimed to open every month, but in 2023 its hoping to open for five weeks, to July 23rd. Last summer it was forced to end its summer skiing after only a few days due to rapid thawing of the thin cover, this year is so far looking more promising due to the greater winter snow build up.