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Although work is yet to begin on their first indoor snow centre, the Alpine-X company has began naming more US cities where it plans to open indoor snow slopes in the future.

Alpine-X have been working on an initial slope in Virginia, known as Fairfax Peak, for several years but has always said the plan is to initially build 20 and then potentially more facilities across the US. It has now said it aims to open facilities in Austin and Dallas in Texas by 2025.

Alpine-X has initially signed a letter of intent to build resorts in the two cities, at locations yet to be decided. Fairfax Peak, in common with quite a few existing indoor snow centres around the world, is planned to be built on a former landfill site. Texas is one of a minority of US states that does not have a conventional ski hill, although it does have plenty of skiers and snowboarders.

Although dozens of indoor snow centres with some heavyweight backers have been proposed for North America over the past 30 years, only one with ski slops has actually been built, and north America was the last populated continent to get an indoor snow ski slope after South America and Africa.

Big Snow in New Jersey finally opened in it 2019 and has since had to contend with pandemic and the fire-damage closures. However reports indicate it is popular when in operation.

Alpine-Z's partners include the SnowWorld group which operate half-a-dozen of Europe's largest indoor centres in the Netherlands, France and Germany.

The SkiStar Group which runs several of Scandinavia's largest ski resorts and claims about a quarter of the total ski market for Norway and Sweden says it had more than six million visitors last winter, a new record.

It also saw record profits.

The total 6,031,000 is an increase of ten percent compared to the previous record set in 2018/19, before the pandemic hit.

"We have also had very strong growth in all mountain products such as SkiPass, up 54 percent and ski rental, up 78 percent, together with record sales in our sporting goods operations, up 38 percent. This shows that the interest in our core business – alpine skiing in the Scandinavian mountains – remains extremely strong," said SkiStar CEO Stefan Sjöstrand who added that despite a challenging wider economy bookings are currently up 20 percent for the coming winter compared with the same period before the most recent comparably normal season before the pandemic: 2019/20.

SkiStar operate Sälen, Vemdalen, Åre in Sweden and Hemsedal and Trysil in Norway.

South America's 2022 ski season has got underway this weekend and it's the first winter since 2019 that skiers from outside the region can again travel in to ski or board the Andes.

Argentina and Chile closed their borders through the first two years of the pandemic but its possible to visit again so long as you arrive with comprehensive medical travel insurance, particularly covering repatriation if you're unlucky enough for that to be required.

Ski areas could operate for periods in the first two winters of the pandemic but less than half did and some of the big names like Argentina's Las Lenas haven't operated at all for three years. Portillo in Chile opened to locals for a few weeks at the end of last winter when Chile eased restrictions but hasn't had international guests since 2019.

About half a dozen areas have opened this weekend with Portillo opening a week early thanks to about a metre of early season snowfall. Catedral near Bariloche, the largest centre on the continent by uplift, opened briefly at the end of April after a freak early-spring snowfall but has now re-opened daily for the season.

Tignes is warning that its summer ski season, due to start on Saturday, may be impacted by the hot weather in much of Europe, including the Alps.

"The winter season went well despite relatively dry conditions. Spring has also been drier and warmer than usual, and the last few days have been scorching," an online statement from the resort advises, continuing, "We will keep you regularly informed of the evolution of the conditions on the glacier and we advise you not to purchase your ski passes more than two days before (you plan to ski.)"

Tignes is aiming for a six week summer ski season until the end of July, if mother nature cooperates, starting from this Saturday, 18 June 2022. However its most recent social media posts have focussed on its mountain biking and golf offerings.

The resort used to offer skiing 365 days a year on its Grande Motte glacier, then moved to trying to ensure skiing and boarding was possible at least one day of every month of the year. In recent years though it has given up on August and September operates as climate change takes hold and has now been overtaken by Les 2 Alpes for length of summer ski season, with Les 2 Alpes already open and hoping to stay open through August.

Tignes' neighbour Val d'Isère announced at the start of this month that it would not open for summer skiing this year, for what's believed to be the first time since it started offering it in 1958. Val d'Isère blamed the dry winter and hot May.

This weekend temperatures on Alpine glaciers are expected to reach +10C in the current heatwave but currently Tignes say that the Grande Motte will open for summer skiing and boarding.

The start of the 2022 ski season in South America this weekend means that ski centres are currently open on all of the six populated continents.

This period usually lasts for 2-3 weeks each year when most southern hemisphere ski nations are starting their seasons and the last centres are ending theirs in Asia and North America, but some years seasons end early/start late and it doesn't quite happen.

Ski centres are still open in Europe and North America from winter 21-22 with the last centre still open in Asia expected to stay open for 3-4 more weeks into early July, snow permitting.

The 2022 ski seasons started in Australia/New Zealand and in Southern Africa a fortnight ago.

Altogether about 40 ski areas in 13 countries across six continents are currently open, this compares to more than 4,000 across more than 60 countries …but only four continents, during the northern hemisphere winter. Only Africa has ski areas in the northern and in the southern hemisphere.

Asia and North America are both down to one ski area each still open – if you exclude private snow fields. Timberline in Oregon aims to stay open to early September whilst Gassan in Japan opened with nine metres of snow lying in April but has see more than 80% of that melt away over the past two months, the aim is to have enough left to keep open in to July however.

In Europe there are eight glacier areas currently open in five countries, believed to be the lowest number for late June for nearly 50 years as climate change has closed more and more of the continent's summer glacier ski areas. More extreme heat is expected this weekend which will see temperatures up to +10C on glaciers.

Along with the conventional outdoor centres there are about 100 indoor snow centres now operating in more than 30 countries on six continents and hundreds of dry slopes.

Mount Washington ski area on Vancouver island has announced it's going to re-open its slopes this weekend only, in celebration of Father's Day.

Announcing this weekend's opening as the "Snowmer Ski & Soar" the resort said in a statement that the Whiskey Jack Chair will be spinning from 10:00 am - 3:00 pm offering access to "limited terrain" with Coaster and the Terrain Park.

"The Eagle's Flight ZipTour will also be open for tours hourly, soaring high above the skiers and snowboarders enjoying slushy spring laps below," the statement continues.

The last Father's Day ski weekend the resort staged was over a decade ago in 2011.

The resort also posted that, "all father's ski for free!" leading one online enquiry posted below the resort's weekend announcement,

"Do I need to bring my kids or can it just be a bunch of dads enjoying Father's Day together and still be free?" to which the resort responded, "We won't ask questions." With a winking emoji.

There's currently no ski areas open to the public in Canada, although the Blackcomb Glacier has re-opened this week for the first time in three years. However it no longer allows skiers from the general public on to its slopes, only those enrolled in a private summer camp.

South of the border the same is the case at Copper Mountain in Colorado although the Palmer ski field on Mt Hood in Oregon is open to all.

Shame. There have been a few similar ones designed to cut car traffic (I remember Sierra Nevada and think others..?) that never made it in the end.

New Zealand's 2022 ski season is expected to get properly underway this weekend as a major 'Antarctic Blast' hits the country's ski areas.

Earlier in the week, Mt Hutt, which had been due to open first, on Friday, announced its opening day was a "moving target" but that it wouldn't now be until some time next week due to, "strong winds and blizzard conditions in the weekend forecast."

However Cardrona ski area announced on Friday that it is going ahead with its planned weekend opening this Saturday, albeit with limited terrain initially,

"Cardrona is opening tomorrow with the Beginners' Area, our Base Area cafés, Snow Sports School, and some terrain park features! We're about to be back in the eye of the storm with more snow on the way, so we're looking to open the McDougall's Chondola next week once the storm has passed," a spokesperson said.

The resort also supplied the enclosed image of how the centre looks ahead of opening.

In fact New Zealand's Whakapapa ski area on Mt Ruapehu opened its own Happy Valley beginners area at the start of the week, so is technically the first to open in the country, but it does not attempt to open full ski runs until July.

While Australia has had massive pre-season snowfalls New Zealand had been suffering from above average temperatures and little natural snowfall or cold enough weather for snowmaking until earlier this week. Snow started falling on Wednesday and some resorts had reported at least 40cm (a foot) of snow by Friday afternoon, with the most optimistic forecasts predicting up to a metre of snowfall possible by next week from the building snow storm.