Fresh Snow At ‘Still Open’ Ski Areas
Friday, April 16th, 2010
Many of the world’s ski areas have now closed for the season or will be doing this weekend, but there are still hundreds of ski areas open with dozens of famous name ski areas many planning to stay open in to May. Even better news is that many have had fresh sow in the past week.
Resorts in Western North America have seen the most snow with up to two metres falling in a week at some in Lake Tahoe and Utah. Whistler has reported 2010-11 its second snowiest ever and Mammoth has announced it will stay open until at least July 4th.
In Europe many resorts have seen at least a few inches of new snow, and in some cases as much as 40cm (16 inches).
The best bets for Spring skiing include the French Alps, where 50 resorts are still open, and half-a-dozen including Chamonix, Tignes and Val d’Isere have announced they’ll stay open to the first week of May.
In Austria about 10 ski areas will stay open in to May, including Ischgl which has its big end of season concert on May 1st when tens of thousands of skiers and boarders gather top celebrate the last weekend of the season. Other good choices are Kaprun, for the Kitzsteinhorn glacier; Solden which reported fresh snow today and the Huntertux glacier in the Ziller Valley which is open year round for snow sports.
In Switzerland Engelberg, Saas Fee and Zermatt are all good bets.
It’s a similar story at Scandinavia’s top resorts with Norway’s leading resort Hemsedal and Sweden’s leading centre of Are both busy in to May with big ends of season events. Further north Riksgransen in the Swedish Arctic Circle will begin to offer midnight skiing and boarding under the midnight sun from late May, while over the order in Finland, Ruka usually ensures it clocks up a nine-month ski season by keeping at least one ski run open in to June, before re-opening for next season, all being well, in October.
Closer to home, four of Scotland’s five ski centres are open at present, with Cairngorm at Aviemore announcing it plans to stay open daily until the end of April and then at weekends for as long as the snow lasts through May.
