Yes it may be the start of summer this month but it’s also the start of the southern hemisphere’s 2016 ski season and more glacier ski areas will be opening for summer skiing in Europe so here’s our monthly guide covering Where to Ski or Snowboard in June 2016?!
Of course you don’t have to go quite so far this year to find fresh powder – the handful of glacier resorts in the alps got another foot of fresh snow in the last week of May – a month that has been snowier than December – and say there’s powder conditions fort the start of the month.
Austria
Heavy snow in the past few weeks on the Dachstein, Hintertux and Kitzsteinhorn glacier – the three Austrian choices open through June. Hintertux starts the month with 1300m of lift-served skiable vertical – that’s bigger than you’ll find anywhere in the southern hemisphere. A fourth Austrian glacier area, Molltal, is expected to open in the middle of the month. Each area has an upper slope base of around 3m/10 feet. Pictured above is an Austrian glacier slope at the end of May.
France
There are no ski areas open in France as we enter June, although there’s been plenty of late-May snowfall on french mountains – that should be good news for the two French glacier areas that do open for the season this month – Les 2 Alpes and Val d’Isere. Alpe d’Huez now has the longest season, opening for 10 weeks from 18th June. Tignes (video from summer skiing above – no, it’s not like that every day…) is due to open on July 2nd this year.
Italy
Only the recently re-opened summer ski centre of Passo Stelvio (pictured above at the weekend) is currently open in Italy. Cervinia, with its’ ski area linked to Zermatt is due to join it later this month. Passo Tonale which would normally be open still is closed for construction work.
Switzerland
Zermatt (with fresh snow to low levels in late May as pictured above) is the only area open in Switzerland during June. Open every day of the year (weather permitting – strong wind is the usual problem), in summer the highest slopes in Europe open up to 3899m (they’re not open in winter).
Scandinavia
Now is thew time to go skiing under the midnight sun up at Riksgransen in the Swedish Arctic Circle which is open to midsummer. Alternatively the Stryn glacier in Norway (pictured above) just opened for summer skiing joining already open Folgefonn.
North America
Most US resorts in California, Utah and Oregon ended their seasons in the last weekend of May and the US Memorial Day holiday. However (nearly) year-round Timberline in Oregon and perhaps more surprisingly Killington in Vermont are still open. Colorado’s Arapahoe Basin is open for one more weekend and Mammoth in California may stay open. And one area that had closed – Crystal Mountain in Washington State – say they’re re-opening for weekends in June.
All of Canada’s ski areas are closed as we start June but Whistler Blackcomb will re-open on June 10th for five weeks of skiing and boarding up on its Blackcomb glacier in to July.
Australia
The Australian ski season is due to kick off on the second weekend of the month, whether or not there’s any snow. So far there has been some snowfall before the season starts but forecasters have issued gloomy predictions of conditions being warm and wet this winter on Aussie slopes due to a growing ‘La Nina’ effect in the Pacific. Hopefully the forecasts will be wrong this time as they so often are!
New Zealand
After a worryingly warm first half of May, New Zealand’s ski areas are in good shape after some heavy pre-season snowfalls and a drop to sub-zero temperatures allowed snowmaking to begin. Cardrona and Coronet Peak are likely to be the first areas to open, on 11th June, with most other resorts opening through thew rest of the month.
Chile
The ski season in South America normally gets started around the latter half of June. There have been some promising pre-season snowfalls already, for example in late may here at Corralco above.
Argentina
18th June 2016 is the target opening date for most ski areas in Argentina. The good news is that the slopes have been looking increasingly white over the latter half of May as D day nears.
Southern Africa
Tiffindell in South Africa and Afriski in Lesotho (video above from last year and picture below from last month) are both scheduled to open in the first week of June, the first ski areas in the southern hemisphere to open for the 2016 ski season, on June 1st and 2nd respectively. Both rely most season on snow making but both have had some good early natural snowfalls too in April and May.
