The past few days have seen more substantial snowfalls in the Alps on ski areas in Austria and Italy that are already open for glacier skiing.
Several glaciers including Kaprun’s Kitzsteinhorn and Pitztal (pictured above yesterday) issued powder alarms for 20cm of fresh snowfalls, or more, in 24 hours.
Other resorts have reported 30-50cm of snow over the past 48-96 hours, including a foot (30cm) at Italy’s Val Senales.
More heavy snow (up to 50cm) is forecast for the next 48 hours at Swiss resorts Saas Fee and Zermatt.
Snow has also reached resort level at other areas not planning to open until next month – including St Anton, pictured below.
More glacier ski areas are scheduled to open this weekend including Crans Montana, St Moritz (Diavolezza glacier) and Engelberg in Switzerland.
Elsewhere in Europe Geilo in Norway and Ruka in Finland have opened for their 16-17 ski seasons, although they are initially using snow stock piled from last season to create their first runs!
Across the Atlantic the battle to be first to open amongst snowmakers is being fought out between resorts like Arapahoe Basin and Loveland (below), high up in Colorado, and Killington in Vermont. Warm weather in the past few days has hampered initial efforts however.
Whistler is also looking good, with the resort issuing a video and a report yesterday, saying:
“Despite some beautiful yellows, greens and reds in the village, Whistler Blackcomb’s alpine wardrobe choice this fall seems to be white. It’s less a question of who we are wearing, but what – snow! Alongside our last days of summer operations came a good dump of the white stuff (an estimated 30+cms!) and we couldn’t help ourselves. We sent Mercedes Nicoll and Stan Rey out to test the goods and lay the first tracks of the Winter 2016-17 season on the Horstman Glacier on Blackcomb Mountain.”