by Patrick Thorne with First Tracks!! Online Media staff reports
Kiltarlity, Scotland, UK – There are still marginally more indoor ski areas open than outdoor worldwide, but the situation looks set to change this week as heavy snowfall has fallen in the Alps and in New England, and winter is setting up for a huge debut in the Rocky Mountains this weekend.nSnowfall has been reported this week in many other areas, too, including Belgium, Iceland and Scotland, and low temperatures mean that snowmaking is currently under way at high altitude resorts in the U.S. with Colorado’s Loveland, Arapahoe Basin and Copper Mountain ski areas, all among the world’s 10 highest ski areas, currently pumping snow on to the slopes. A-Basin and Loveland are each hoping to open in the next 48 hours.
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Copper Mountain employees were testing the Colorado resort’s manmade snow on Thursday ahead of tomorrow’s season opening for race team training only. |
The ski season’s projected opening date in Colorado is changing by the hour. Loveland was grooming the manmade snow on its slopes on Monday, but Copper Mountain has confirmed it plans to open for race camps only tomorrow.
“We are pumped and ready at Copper to begin Fall Race Camps, while the competition continues to scramble for promising weather reports,” says JP Chevalier, Copper’s Director of Skier Services.
“We’re thrilled to once again host the U.S. Ski Team, including many of the elite members, for Super G and Downhill training,” adds Jeff White, Race Department Manager at Copper. “The PSIA [Professional Ski Instructors of America] National Ski and Snowboard Educational Teams continue to elect Copper Mountain as their early season training venue.”
Last season alone Copper hosted more than 100 different and separate teams, including the Australian Disabled Ski Team, the Finnih Ski Team, the Polish Snowboard Team, The Canadian National Snowboard Team, The U.S. Men’s and Women’s Ski Team and America’s Snowboard Team.
Colorado’s resorts are running about two weeks behind last year’s opening date and are building their bases with snowmaking in most cases. They currently have bases of up to 18 inches (45cm) made up mostly of machine made snow.
There has already been some skiing in Colorado, with staff at the small Silverton Mountain area reportedly getting first tracks a few weeks ago on natural snow, and elsewhere in the U.S., Timberline, the all year ski area in Oregon, is currently open on weekends with a 28 inch (70cm) base.
The big story in the western U.S. this weekend, however, is expected to be a massive debut of winter in the Rocky Mountains and the Intermountain West. A pair of storm systems is forecast to move into Utah Saturday through Monday, leaving up to two feet of snow on the slopes of Wasatch ski resorts before heading east into Colorado and leaving a deep freeze behind. Snow levels are expected to start at around 9,000 feet before snow may even reach the floor of the Salt Lake Valley, barely over 4,000 feet, Monday night. Should they pan out, these storms are likely to establish a base for resorts planning to open throughout next month.
North of the border, Canadian ski resorts in Alberta have been reporting heavy snowfall over the past week and are expected to begin opening at the end of next week. Mount Norquay near Banff has announced it will aim to open for its 85th season next Saturday, Oct. 30, and it seems now that it may be joined by Nakiska, between Banff and Calgary, which has announced it will try to open earlier than expected on the same date. Cold weather for snowmaking plus natural snowfall have helped.
Marmot Basin ski area near Jasper, Alberta, got hit with a whopping 25cm (10 inches) of snow overnight last weekend. While work crews are busy making final preparations for Marmot’s Nov. 11 opening, local skiers and snowboarders awoke to a big surprise, with snow covered peaks visible in all directions.
“There’s nothing like a huge snowstorm in mid October to get our local skiers and boarders fired up,” exclaimed Brian Rode, Marmot’s Vice President of Marketing and Sales. “This is shaping up to be a repeat performance of last season when we had record snowfall in October and November.”
Marmot ski patrol and lift maintenance crews are getting the mountain ready for opening day and, while the snow that blankets the mountain will force them to make some changes to their work schedule, it will not slow them down. It just means that some of their work will now be done on skis and snowmobiles rather than on foot or by truck, something no one at Marmot is complaining about!
Nearby Banff-Lake Louise received heavy snow, too, and the snow guns have started at Lake Louise. It, and the third Banff resort of Sunshine will open in early November – just a few weeks away.
Snow has also been falling in British Columbia. Sun Peaks Village was covered in white with the first snowfall of the season at the resort. More than 12 centimeters (five inches) of fresh snow fell at mid-mountain over the weekend. With cooler temperatures in the forecast, mountain operations crews hope to begin making snow over the next couple of days in preparation for the arrival of the Austrian Women’s Ski Team in mid-November. Opening day for the public at Sun Peaks Resort is scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 20.
Things are looking good on the East Coast of North America, too. Whiteface in New York State has reported 30cm (a foot) of fresh snow on its summit last Friday, following reports that Sunday River in Maine and Bretton Woods in New Hampshire had each fired its snow guns in pre-season testing. Killington in Vermont reported 14 inches at the summit and six inches at the K-1 Lodge from last Friday’s system.
In the Alps heavy snow has been reported down to low levels across the region with snowfalls of more than 60cm (two feet) at some locations down to as low as 500m above sea level, obviously good news whether these resorts are already open or about to.
Austria continues to have more ski areas open outdoors than any other country at present, with seven glacier ski areas open at Pitztal, Soelden, the Stubai, Kaunertal, Kitzsteinhorn, Mollrtal and Tux to choose from. Soelden is holding the first World Cup ski races of the northern hemisphere’s 2010-11 season this weekend, while its neighbor Obergurgl reported another 20 cm of fresh snow this morning. The ski resort has up to 70 cm of snow on its slopes now and is one of the first to open each winter.
The Stubai glacier just had 10 cm of fresh snow. At the top station (3000m) the resort has a snow layer of 60cm and 39km of the ski slopes are open. The Tux glacier currently has the largest ski area open in the world with more than 40km of runs to enjoy and a nearly 600m skiable vertical.
In Switzerland Engelberg, Saas Fee, Zermatt and the Diavolezza glacier near St. Moritz are all open and there’s a fifth option of the Diablerets Glacier partially available, although the full opening is not planned for another week.
“The glacier ski area ‘Glacier 3000’ opens its ski season on Saturday, October 30th,” Diablerets officials said in a prepared statement. “Currently, the Dôme ski lift and parts of the Snow Park are available to skiers and snowboarders.”
“The snow situation is excellent, the slopes are well-prepared and it’s cold enough for the snow to stay,” assured Daniela Burkhard of Zermatt Bergbahnen AG, speaking from her resort along the Swiss-Italian border, where the glacier is sporting snow depths of 173cm above 2900m. “At the moment our lift facilities are being revised and only one of the smaller ski lifts is in operation but next weekend all of them will be running.”
In Italy it’s still Passo Stelvio and Val Senales that are open, but the Presena Glacier which stays open the longest in the country in the spring is set to re-open tomorrow and Cervinia soon thereafter.
In Germany the Zugspitz glacier at 2011 Alpine World Championships host Garmisch has received heavy snowfall in the past week and they have 70 cm of snow on the ground, according to meteorologist Christina Speicher of DWD. There’s no word yet on an opening date, however.
Other German ski resorts Oberstdorf-Nebelhorn and Oberstdorf-Fellhorn/Kanzelwand reported 30 cm (a foot) of fresh snow each. The Feldberg in the Black Forest had 15 cm (six inches).
Tignes in France will be joined tomorrow by Les 2 Alpes, which opens for one week only for English and French school holiday periods and throws big gear demo and party festivals. Les 2 Alpes will then close again at the end of the month and Tignes will be operating alone in France for the first few weeks of November before other resorts begin to open en masse.
In Scandinavia, Finland’s Ruka was the first ski area to open last weekend but very cold weather currently across the continent and snowing, several more top resorts expect to open in the next few days. Uvdal, Bjorli, Gaustablikk, Haukelifjell, Kvitfjell and Trysil all expect to open next weekend or before, with Beitostølen, Geilo, Hemsedal , Nesbyen, Tyin-Filefjell and Skeikampen following a week later.
In the southern hemisphere, only New Zealand’s two ski areas on Mt. Ruapehu remain open. All ski areas are now closed in Africa, Australia and South America. Both Ruapehu ski areas have around 1.8m (six foot) bases with Whakapapa reporting 5cm of new snow and Turoa a 10cm snowfall. Whakapapa is set to close following this weekend’s skiing and riding, while Turoa is due to stay open an extra two weeks to Nov. 8.