There has been another snowstorm in the Alps, the third so far this autumn, bringing more fresh snow to higher slopes.
Around 12 glacier ski areas are currently open in Europe, more than half of them in Austria, and all have reported fresh snowfall in the past 24 hours, although several now have clear skiers this morning for a powder snow day.
Hintertux, pictured below this morning, reports 20cm of fresh snow in the past 24 hours.
The next glacier ski areas scheduled to open are the Kitzsteinhorn in Austria and Engelberg in Switzerland in just over a week’s time on Saturday 12th October.
Tignes was due to have opened last Saturday for its season but delayed doing so due to a lack of adequate snow cover. It, in common with most French areas, has had fresh snow too, but has not yet announced whether this has been enough for it to plan a new opening date.
The first non-glacier ski area in the northern hemisphere to open however, Ruka in Finland (pictured below last month), is scheduled to do so tomorrow. It uses snow it piles up and stockpiles through the summer then spreads back out on three slopes when it gets cooler in the autumn in order to open early, in a process called snow farming.
Kitzbuhel will use the same technique to be the first non-glacier ski area in the Alps to open in just over a fortnight’s time.
