J2Ski Snow Report - October 20th 2016
J2Ski Snow Report - October 20th 2016
Published : 20-Oct-2016 08:17
More resort openings, and more early snows to report this week...
Les 2 Alpes this morning, ready to open this weekend!
This Week's Snow Headlines
- Swiss glacier ski areas push back opening dates.
- 10cm of fresh powder at the only southern hemisphere ski centre still open.
- Les 2 Alpes to join Tignes for one week only as the second French glacier area open.
- Major new access lifts opening to the Stubai glacier.
- Kitzbuhel targets early opening this weekend.
- World Cup ski season gets underway this weekend in Solden.
- Arapahoe Basin opens tomorrow.
- 75cm for Whistler last weekend, who plan to open 24th November.
The 2016-17 continues to gather pace, even though there are still fewer than 20 areas open worldwide!
The big news of the past week were significant snowfalls in Western North America and the Swiss Alps, but the big news for the week ahead is mostly in Austria, home to around half of the currently open areas, where the first non-glacier resort in Europe (maybe the world if nowhere in Colorado opens sooner), also one of the lowest ski areas in the Alps, hopes to open this weekend.
In addition a hugely expensive new lift to access the Stubai glacier is due to open and, at a third Austrian glacier area, the 2016-17 World Cup season is due to kick off.
Down in the southern hemisphere the 2016 season continues at just one remaining area and there's been fresh snow in New Zealand.
In the Forecast
Less snow for Europe than last week, with a clearer few days coming up and temperatures rising a little into next week before cooling again. That said, there will be some snow showers around this weekend with some heavy localized snowfall likely in the Eastern Alps (Austria, etc.); conditions on the open glaciers likely to be excellent!
Win Tickets to the London Ski Show
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The Alps
Austria
Things are looking exciting on the glacier slopes of Austria this week with the 2016-17 World Cup tour getting underway at Sölden whilst the nearby Stubai glacier unveils its state-of-the-art new high speed, high capacity access lifts from the valley to the glacier built over the past two summers at a vast cost! And in a third piece of Austrian news Kitzbuhel hopes to open some terrain this weekend too thanks to some clever snowmaking.
The FIS announced a positive snow control for Sölden for the Audi FIS Ski World Cup races to take place this weekend on 22nd - 23rd October at the end of last week.
Kitzbuhel was forecast, about 10 years ago, to be a likely early victim of climate change in a UN report and has subsequently gone out of its way to open earlier and earlier each season so statistically it can post ever longer seasons rather than shorter ones. But that may all be coincidence.
Six other Austrian glaciers remain open with some fresh snow over the past few days, meaning around half of the world's currently open ski areas are in Austria. These include the Dachstein, Hintertux, Kaunertal, Kitzsteinhorn, Molltal and Pitztal glaciers.
Base depths on the glaciers are between 50 and 230cm and moset have had 5-20cm of fresh snow this week.
France
Tignes continues to be the only ski area open in France at present, but that changes at the weekend for one week (and two weekends) as Les 2 Alpes re-opens for its traditional October-school-holiday week. This sees what it claims is Europe's largest glacier ski area open with lots of competitions, festivals and new season gear tests. It closes again on 1st November until re-opening a month later for the winter season. Tignes currently has a foot of snow on its glacier and four runs open, conditions are said to be 'very good' Les 2 Alpes won't say what their conditions are like until opening day but presumably they're fairly similar!
Italy
Passo Stelvio and Val Senales remain the two open glacier ski areas in Italy. Like Austria they've had some fresh snow and bases are in the 50-120cm bracket. A third Italian area, Cervinia, re-opened last weekend and will re-open this coming weekend too before going full-time from the 29th, the weekend after. It provides cross-border glacier skiing with Zermatt on the Swiss side of the border.
Switzerland
Last weekend was supposed to be a busy one on Swiss slopes with the number of open ski areas due to more than double from two to five! But year round Zermatt and Saas Fee, open since July, were joined by Crans Montana, Diavolezza near St Moritz and the Titlis glacier at Engelberg as planned with all three deciding to push back their initially announced opening dates. There was however fresh snow.
Zermatt and Saas fee have increased their open terrain however. Zermatt have opened runs on the Furggsattel glacier meaning there's now a choice of 27 runs open at the area and Saas-Fee have opened runs and lifts further down the mountain increasing the skiable vertical down to the mid-station at Morenia.
The next area to open in Switzerland will be the Diavolezza glacier near St Moritz, which delayed its planned opening last weekend to this weekend (22nd). Engelberg may open then too and will decide in the next 24 hours. Crans Montana appears to have delayed opening now until November.
Arosa, is scheduled to open a week on Saturday – 29th October. If it does open as planned it will be the first non-glacier ski area in Switzerland to open for 16-17, but it is reported to have invested in a special snowmaking machine capable of operating in positive temperatures. A sixth Swiss glacier area, Glacier 3000 between Diablerets and Gstaad, is also scheduled to open on the 29th.
Scandinavia
There's no change on a week ago in Scandinavia with three areas open in Norway and Finland.
Ruka is now over a week into its longest-non-glacier-resort-ski-season-in-the-world 2016-17 season thanks to using recycled snow from last season, a technique also used by Geilo in Norway. Ruka's run number 13, Saarua, is the open slope, the same one that will be kept open well in to May next year at the other end of the season. Temperatures are just hovering a few degrees above freezing making snowmaking just about possible at times.
Also open as it has been all summer is the Galdhoppigen glacier in Norway which has a 4m base and should stay open to the end of the month.
North America
There have been some huge snowfalls in Western North America on high slopes, Jackson Hole and Whistler both reported big 50cm+ accumulations over the weekend and many other areas had good snowfalls too.
The battle to be the first resort on the continent to open for 2016-17 continues with several centres in Colorado tantalisingly close, but the weather keeps fluctuating between cold-enough-for-snowmaking to warm-enough-to-thaw. Arapahoe Basin has announced they will open tomorrow, and Loveland are expected to announce opening day imminently.
Southern Hemisphere
Although more fresh snow has been reported in Australia and New Zealand in the last seven days there have been no reported re-openings of ski areas closed at the end of the 2016 season and only Mt Ruapehu in New Zealand remains open for snow-sports.
Both its Whakapapa and Turoa snowfield were still operating last week although there were some weather closures as snowstorms brought another 10cm/4 inches of fresh powder at the weekend to build the substantial bases still further. There's 2.2m at Whakapapa and 1.7m at Turoa. The centre will be open until at least November 6th.
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