The big snow falls in the Alps a week ago have led to some truly excellent conditions for late October over the past week.
There are now around 20 ski areas open in Europe and North America with several more scheduled to open today – Halloween – including the first Canadian resort opening for 2014-15.
Thanks to all the snow some ski areas in the Alps are already offering more than 40km (25 miles) of opened groomed runs over more than 1,000m of vertical – a total that’s pretty well unheard of for October.
South of the equator only one resort is still open for the very end of the 2014 ski season in the southern hemisphere.
Austria
Eight glacier ski areas are open in Austria, all reporting pretty superb conditions for mid-autumn with fresh snow giving conditions more like mid-winter. After double-digit subzero temperatures a week ago though it has now warmed up considerably and most have temps around the freezing point and clear sunny days to enjoy the great conditions. Pictured is early morning in Hintertux a few days ago – it currently has the biggest ski area open in the alps with 40km of slopes to enjoy.
France
Les 2 Alpes has been open for the past week, joining Tignes which has been open since the first weekend in October. Both have good conditions with Tignes hosting French national freestyle competitors in its competition half pipe this week (as pictured). Les 2 Alpes will close again for three weeks from the end of the day on Sunday leaving only Tignes open again until Val Thorens opens in a few weeks’ time.
Italy
Cervinia (from where the web cam image is taken) has been open for weekends through October but is now open full time from through November, and indeed all winter and well in to spring. It joins Passo Stelvio near Bormio and Val Senales, Italy’s two remaining glacier ski areas that open in summer and early autumn respectively. Both report the same fresh snow as the rest of the Alps, greatly improving conditions.
Switzerland
Five ski areas are open in Switzerland thanks to Engelberg and Glacier 3000 above Les Diablerets and Gstaad (pictured) opening last weekend. Glacier 3000 also opened the world’s highest pedestrian suspension bridge between two peaks, some 3000m up, for an apres ski thrill. The two centres join the Diavolezza glacier near St Moritz, Saas Fee and Zermatt – all reporting great conditions.
Scotland
Scottish ski areas are still a wway off opening, and most of their slopes received an incredible deluge of rain over last weekend, but temperatures did drop to freezing on Wednesday and Glencoe sent this picture a week ago shoeing things were turning white.
Scandinavia
Levi (pictured), Finland’s biggest resort, has opened joining Ruka which has now clocked up two weeks in operation and expanded the number of runs it has open to six. Levi will stage World Cup racing in a fortnight’s time.
Canada
Mt Norquay (pictured a week ago when snowmaking began) is due to open later today (Halloween) if snow conditions are good enough. It will be the first Canadian resort to open but others in the region are expected to follow in the next few weeks.
USA
Arapahoe Basin reported fresh snow earlier this week (pictured above), adding three inches to its base. Surprisingly perhaps, it remains the only area open in Colorado after a fortnight now, although it is due to be joined by another two mile high resort nearby, Keystone, today (Halloween). Another US option is Timberline ski area on Mt Hood in Oregon.
Southern Hemisphere
Only Turoa ski area on Mt Ruapehu in New Zealand remains open in the southern hemisphere. It has a 1.5m base and expects to stay open for two more weekends, to November 9th.
