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A dozen glacier ski areas have opened in Austria, Italy, Norway and Switzerland and two more centres have opened using snow farming in northern Finland, but the start of the 22-23 ski season in France appears to be currently on hold.

Two glaciers – Europe's largest for winter sports at Les 2 Alpes and Tignes (pictured top) – has originally targeted the coming weekend as their hoped for season start dates but that has now slid.

Les 2 Alpes currently says they still hope to delay by just a week and open from the 22nd October in just over a week's time. Earlier in the year the resort won the chance to host the season openings for two 22-23 world cup tours, the Snowboard Cross World Cup [26, 27, 28 and 29 October 2022] and Ski Cross World Cup [2, 3, 4 and 5 November 2022] so it is pulling out all the stops to be open.

"Despite the fact that the glacier is still there, the usual opening of the Glacier for autumn skiing has been compromised. Indeed, following a winter of 2021-2022 which did not generate as much snow as in other years, as well as a particularly hot spring and summer, the optimal conditions for good practice and safety cannot be guaranteed on the Grande Motte Glacier at this time," a Tignes statement explains.

The resort previously offered skiing 365 days a year, then ensured it opened every month of the year for at least a day or two, but gave up on that goal too about five years ago.

"However, a good weather surprise may be in store. If the snow conditions were to evolve sufficiently positively during October, the opening of part of the Tignes ski area could be envisaged," the resort statement continues.

It has in fact been around freezing for about a month now at glacier height in the Alps and Tignes had had some snow, reporting a depth of 15cm (6 inches) on its glacier at present.

Saas Fee has re-opened its glacier for autumn skiing to all from Friday, 7th October.

The resort's ski season is one of the world's longest, with the ski runs opening in mid-July and staying open for eight months to late April.

This year however the impact of the low snowfall last winter and high temperatures even at 4,000m altitude meant Saas Fee decided to limit what slopes it could open to race team training for the past few months. Britain's Dave Ryding was among those training there.

Things have now improved enough for it to open 20km of slopes on the Mittelallalin with four glacier ski lifts operating.

"The glacier ski area will be open again without restrictions from Friday, October 7th, 2022," a resort media statement explained, adding, "The wintry temperatures and snowfall have had an effect. In Saas-Fee, the glacier ski area will be open again without restrictions on Friday."

Saas-Fee joins Zermatt as the second area currently open in Switzerland. The formerly year-round glacier was forced to close for seven weeks in the summer for the same reasons as Saas-Fee but reopened a few weeks ago.

There are also seven areas open in Austria and two in Italy with two centres in Finland due to also open today thanks to snow farming.

The Olympic Council of Asia, meeting in Cambodia, has awarded Saudi Arabia the chance to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games at the country's planned Trojena ski resort.

Trojena is part of a planned carbon-neutral $500 billion mega-city called Neom promoted by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman but as yet largely unstarted, according to media reports.

The ski area is due to be built in Saudi Arabia's 2,400-metre high Sarawat Mountains which are on average 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the country and occasionally see sub-zero temperatures overnight and rare dustings of snow.

How competition standard ski slopes will be created in this environment has so far not been publicly disclosed. There's speculation that a large number of all-weather snowmaking machines might be employed – creating snow in indoor chambers then spreading it on the slopes and constantly topping it up to counter thawing. A similar technique has been employed to maintain slopes in above zero temperatures at ski areas around the world including centres in Scotland.

Saudi Arabia does have small indoor snow centres and a large one, Ski Saudi, is under construction by the company behind Ski Dubai and Ski Egypt. The country has also begun building a national ski and snowboarding team, mirroring attempts in Egypt and Dubai to do the same. The United Arab Emirates are now associate members of the International Ski & Snowboard Federation and hosted their first FIS sanctioned competition within Ski Dubai earlier this year.

The Asian Winter Games were first staged in Japan in 1986 there have been subsequent competitions in China, South Korea and Kazakhstan. It was last staged back in Japan in 2017 but has had difficulties finding hosts since.

Canada has removed all restrictions on incoming travel, removing restrictions put in place due to the pandemic.

The country had previous re-opened its borders more than a year ago, but then re-introduced random testing in the summer at a limited number of international airports including those most used by skiers such as Vancouver for West Coast resorts like Whistler Blackcomb, Calgary for Alberta ski areas like Banff and Lake Louise and Montreal for Mont Tremblant.

Prior to the re-introduction advance sales of ski holidays for 22-23 to Canada had been strong, but a number of leading holiday companies including Inghams reported sales slowed once the reintroduction was announced.

Now however all COVID-19 restrictions for travellers have been dropped, as of the start of October. You no longer need to be vaccinated nor to wear a facemask on flights or trains. No evidence of vaccination or any other vaccine-status related documentation is required.

The Canadian government cited improving conditions with better vaccines available and 90% of Canadians now being at least partially vaccinated. A government minister said they sincerely hoped no new restrictions would be needed from now on.

Canadian airline Westjet issued a press statement saying:

"As Canadians and international visitors look to make travel plans, the long-awaited removal of all remaining measures effective Oct. 1, 2022 will further expedite recovery for our industry and the Canadian economy."

Elsewhere in the ski travel world, Japan says it will allow independent travellers in from 11th October for the first time in more than two-and-a-half years although evidence of vaccination or of a recent negative PCR test will be required if unvaccinated.

The USA continues to ban unvaccinated arrivals, unless US Passport holders, although there are rumours this requirement will soon be dropped.

"Canada is already getting notice by Brits booking next winter, with all restrictions gone. If the rumours about the US dropping all entry requirements are true, we expect a flood of Colorado lovers to start booking big-name favourites like Breckenridge and Vail too," said Richard Sinclair of http://www.sno.co.uk

Canada's 22-23 ski season is expected to begin in a month's time with lake Louise targeting November 4th as their 'tentative' opening day if mother nature plays ball. Other Alberta ski areas Banff Norquay, Sunshine and Nakiska all usually open around then as well but are yet to name their target opening dates.

Snow has begun falling in Colorado in what is expected to be a snowy weekend for high slopes in the state – while temperatures down in Denver remain in the 70s Fahrenheit.

Copper Mountain (pictured above on 30th September), due to open for its 22-23 season in a little over a month, said it had measured 3" of snow on its upper slopes by Friday morning, the last day of September, with more forecast.

Loveland (pictured below), one of four or five Colorado resorts with a history of October openings when possible, reported both fresh snowfall and the 'countdown to the start of snowmaking' clock it had been running through September hit zero – meaning snowmaking should also have begun. It's unclear if it did as currently the site now says: 'snowmaking coming soon.'

Initial forecasts suggested some areas might get more than a foot of snow but these have now been scaled back to expectations of maximum 8 inch accumulations.

Arapahoe Basin, Keystone, Loveland, Silverton and Wolf Creek are the usual contenders to be first in the state, and often in North America, to open for the ski season, some years by mid-October.

For some areas this is at least the third snow covering of the fall so far, but the snow volume is increasing and temperatures dropping increasing hopes that it might stick around this time.

After over a month when only one ski area was open in Europe and the entire northern hemisphere, fresh snowfall in the Alps has led to glacier ski areas opening for their early Autumn ski tests, terrain-park reveals and Octoberfests.

The Solden glacier joined year-round Hintertux earlier this month but the Stubai (pictured top on Monday this week), Kaunertal and Pitztal glaciers will join them this weekend, to give five Austrian areas open – half the northern hemisphere total for the first week of October.

Hintertux, which is making much of its terrain park launch this weekend, is the only area that kept going through August and early-September, believed to be thanks to snowmaking on 6km of its glacier slopes. These (literally) scraped through the final months of unprecedented hot weather at altitude on glaciers with thin icy cover. However, snowfalls this week and earlier this month have given over 20cm (8") of fresh cover and the resort now has 18km of slopes open.

All five open glaciers are in the Tirol region. The Kitzsteinhorn near Kaprun in Salzburgerland does not appear to have confirmed an opening dated yet but has posted images of fresh snowfall and slope preparation. It's a similar story with Carinthia's Molltal Glacier which until recently had an 11 month season from June to May, but has not re-opened since last May and has not yet confirmed quite when it will.

Reports from Austria indicate an eighth glacier, the Dachstein, has opened already but will only welcome cross country skiers to high-altitude trails on it this autumn and winter.

Elsewhere in Europe Zermatt is open and has expanded the terrain it has open and the lift link from Cervinia to the slopes opens on Saturday. Saas Fee is also open but for race teams training. Passo Stelvio and Val Senales are open in Italy and the first French areas to open, Les 2 Alpes and Tignes, are due to join them on 15th October.

One ski area is open in Scandinavia, the Galdhopiggen glacier, which reports 40cm of fresh snowfall this week. Levi and Ruka in Finland plan to open for their seven-month seasons in a week's time on October 7th, using farmed snow to each created a few kilometres of slopes.

The leading ski area of Alpe d'Huez in the Isère region of the southern French Alps will see several new lifts this winter.

The region is now known as the Grand Domaine ski region to encompass the wider area and neighbouring linked ski villages like Vaujany.

The new Huez Express gondola will replace the original Televillage lift from the village of Huez, a small, sleepy, charming, typical mountain village – with narrow streets and typically alpine architecture. This will speed up access and opens on 17 December 2022.

In neighbouring Auris the old Les Sures chairlift will be replaced with a new, high-performance, fast telemix lift combining the advantages of a chairlift — skiers keep their equipment on and can board faster — and those of a gondola.

There's been more snowfall reported on high slopes in the Alps, dramatically improving conditions on glaciers that are already open or opening soon for the 22-23 season.

Austria's Hintertux (pictured this morning on Monday, 26th September), the only resort to have managed to keep operating through the summer, has reported a good 8" (20cm) fall over the weekend as skies cleared this morning. There's more snow forecast through the remainder of this week.

There are now five glacier centres open in Austria, Italy and Switzerland with three more due to join them this coming weekend. The first French areas are due to join them in mid-October with Les 2 Alpes and Tignes planning to open from the 15th.

There has also been the first snowfalls of the autumn reported in the Pyrenees and the second in the Tatra mountains in recent days and Scottish hills have also seen their first snowfalls on high peaks.