2009-10 Ski Season Gets Underway!
Wednesday, September 9th, 2009
It may only be the start of September, and officially still summertime, but the first ski resorts to open for the 2009-10 ski season are already making snow and grooming pistes ahead of turning on the lifts as early as this coming weekend – September 12th.
Pitztal in Austria, the country’s highest ski area, will be the first to open, thanks in part to the installation of a remarkable new snowmaking system built in the heat of the Middle East by Israeli company IDE.
IDE has no history in the ski industry but works in industrial scale processes such as desalination and providing cooling systems for mines. It was the installation of a new cooling machine for a South African gold mine in the 1990s that led to the company discovering that as a by-product of the process, the machine made high grade snow in any temperature, pumping out piles of the stuff in front of bemused locals in the glare of the South African sunshine.
In the Alps the company has installed two machines, the one at Pitztal and one at Zermatt, which enable the resorts to create snow at almost any temperature on their glaciers. The new machine has already proved its worth to Pitztal which will be able to open this weekend when other Austrian glacier ski areas have had to delay their planned opening dates – Solden had aimed to open last weekend, but summer heat last month means snow cover on the glacier is inadequate. The Kitzsteinhorn summer ski area above Kaprun has had to temporarily close for the same reason.
There are however some resorts that are still open from the summer, including Saas Fee and Zermatt in Switzerland and Cervinia in Italy.
Following Pitztal, Tignes is due to open in France the following weekend, and Timberline on Mt hood in Oregon, USA will be the first North American ski area to open, at the same time. Both only closed their summer ski operations a few weeks ago.
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