It's looking pretty good
Sunday October 25, 2009 - Email this article to a friend

Winter weather has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere.  In general areas including the Indian Himalayas, Japanese Alps, Alaska, Canada and the European Alps have had significant snowfalls.  Conditions on Europe’s glaciers are fantastic and more is expected enabling more ski resorts to open. 

There’s still more snow falling in the Southern Hemisphere with fresh accumulations in Australia, though all ski areas are now officially closed.

Here’s the snow overview around the world on Thursday 22nd October with the help of skiinfo .

Austria:  After last week’s heavy snowfalls, glacier conditions are still excellent at Hintertux, Molltal, Pitztal, Solden, Stubai, and Tux even though temperatures have risen slightly. Most report snow depths of up to 1.5m and much of it fresh snow.  The Planai ski area at Schladming opened last weekend and the Austrian national biathlon team arrived in Seefeld to train on its cross country trails.   At Soelden preparations are well underway for the opening races of the World Cup which starts on Saturday. 

It has 55cm of snow on the glaciers and 6 lifts open.

Kitzbühel opens its doors this weekend. It's the first ski resort in the Tirol to open. A combination of very cold conditions, almost a metre of fresh snow and snow-making has made it possible for Kitzbühel to open 2 month early, and never before in the 80 years histroy of the lift company has it opened this early.

However, we need to keep all this in context as much of the snow will probably melt and there is a bit of race going on to open ealry for PR pusposes.  It is not as bad as America - yet.

The web camera picture below shows Kitzbuhel at 1,700m on Saturday afternoon - hardly mid-winter.

Kitzbühel opens its doors this Saturday, 24 October. It's the first ski resort in the Tirol to open. A combination of very cold conditions, almost a metre of fresh snow and modern snow-making equipment has made it possible for Kitzbühel to open 2 month early, and never before in the 80 years histroy of the lift company has it opned this early.

The Kitzbühel ski resort will be open at weekends until 28 November when it opens daily.  All 7 of the ski resorts in the Kitzbüheler Alpen have received plenty of fresh snowfall already and are ideally equipped for the coming winter.

Hochfuegen in the Zillertal also opens up this weekend.

Switzerland:  Saas Fee and Zermatt received more fresh snow. Overnight snowfalls in Saas Fee (21st October) delayed lift openings on 22nd. Conditions in Saas Fee are excellent.

National teams including GB (Chemmy Alcott) and US (Bode Miller) Polish, Swiss, Russian and other teams were training hard on the glacier earlier this week in preparation for Soelden.  Temperatures have been very cold and snowmaking has started on lower non-glacial slopes.  Construction of a new half pipe is almost complete in preparation for Saas Fee's European Cup next weekend and the November LG FIS Snowboarding World Cup.  Engelberg will open ahead of schedule this weekend, with 2 red runs served by a T Bar and the six-seater Ice Flyer chairlift.

Italy:  Cervinia continues to open at weekends joining Val Senales and Passo Stelvio.

France:  The Grande Motte in Tignes is the only glacier resort open In France and it received a fresh dusting of snow, right into town.

Spain:  5cm of snow in Formigal and another 15cm predicted today.

Scandinavia:  A great start to the 2009/10 ski season with resorts in Norway and Sweden joining Ruka (Finland) which opened last week.  At least 5 areas have opened in the region, including Funasdalen, one of the leading Swedish resorts.

North America:  At least five ski areas are now open.  US’s two biggest resorts, Mammoth in California on the west coast and Sunday River in Maine on the east coast both opened at the end of last week, with free skiing for everyone on opening day.  Mammoth closed until temperatures drop so more artificial snow can be made.

The small Montana ski area of Great Divide reported it’s earliest ever opening.  These resorts join Loveland and Arapahoe Basin in Colorado and Donner Summit in California which were among the first to open.  Another Colorado ski area, Copper Mountain, has opened for race training. Cataloochee in North Carolina was unable to open on Monday as planned. It had began snowmaking but unfortunately temperatures rose.

Bad weather in Squaw Valley California is good news for skiers. "These early storms are ideal for the coming season," commented Savannah Cowley, Squaw Valley's spokesperson. “This high moisture content, early season snow is absorbed into the ground which is superb for our base layer. In contrast to rain, wet snow stays on the ground long enough to moisturize the ground which allows the new snow to better adhere.”  Squaw Valley staged the Winter Olympics 50 years ago and has been open for skiing for 60 years.

Canada:  Mount Norquay looks likely to be Canada’s first ski area to open. Banff’s local ski hill is already covered in snow and plans to open weekends from 31st October.  Nearby the resorts of Nakiska, Sunshine and Lake Louise plan to open within the first few days of November.

Japan:  Japan’s Mt Yotei near the leading resort of Niseko has seen its first snowfalls and temperatures have dropped.

Southern Hemisphere:
All but two ski areas are now believed to be closed.  There’s over a metre of snow still lying on the slopes in many major resorts in South America and in New Zealand.

New Zealand:  Two resorts still open in New Zealand are Turoa (2.4m snow depth) and neighbouring Whakapapa 1.6m although both were recently closed for several days by bad weather.

Many of the world’s best snowboarders and skiers are in New Zealand taking advantage of Cardrona’s 22ft halfpipe, one of very few currently open in the world.  They’re there for a private Pre-Olympic Pipe Camp in the lead up to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics.  The camp has attracted Olympic medalist Shaun White, X-Games medalist Torah Bright (AUS) as well as top performing snowboarders Crispin Lipscomb (CAN), Ben Mates (AUS), national teams and representatives from New Zealand, Japan, Poland, Canada and Spain, all looking for valuable training time.

In the closing weeks of the season Cardrona’s management was approached by national teams from all over the world looking for a training facility during October. Cardrona was happy to oblige and retained the services of John Melville, Cardrona's Parks & Pipes manager. The pipe camp runs from 5th October ending on 24th October.

Olympic Gold medalist Shaun White (USA) flew back to New Zealand specifically for the first week of the private Pre-Olympic Pipe Camp and was grateful for the training opportunity. "I had a great time, it's awesome to be able to rely on a mountain to have great terrain during the summer time when there's no snow in the U.S," he said.

Australia:  Ski areas closed several weeks ago but recent heavy snow allowed Charlotte Pass to re-opening its Basin Poma at the weekend for employees to enjoy the fresh powder. 

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