Heavy Snow In The Alps Plus Finland’s Season Starts

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

Heavy snow has been reported falling across Europe’s already-open glacier ski areas in France, Italy, Switzerland and Austria and there has also been up to 10cm (4 inches) of fresh snow down at resort level in famous ski areas like Obergurgl in Austria and Klosters in Switzerland which are not due to open until next month.

Snow reporting agency www.skiinfo.co.uk posted details of falls of up to a metre (over three feet) at Hintertux in Austria – the year-round ski area which first reported huge snowfalls in the same second-week of October lst year, which proved to be the start of nearly three months of snowfall, setting the Alps up for a great snow season last winter. It looks like history is repeating itself.

In Kaprun, the fresh snow has arrived in perfect time for a series of freestyle workshops that the Kitzsteinhorn glacier is planning to run from this Saturday onwards. It reports up to 76cm (30 inches) of new snow taking base depths on the glacier up to 1.5m (five feet).

Also in Austria, which continues to have the most choice of seven glacier ski areas open, the Stubai glacier has reported 135cm (14 inches) of new snow taking snow depths to a metre and the Molltal glacier was another to generate a Skiinfo.co.uk powder alarm with a 40cm (16 inch fall). There’s also new snow at Pitztal, on the Dachstein and at Solden where the World cup kicks off next weekend.

Snow has also been falling on the open glacier ski areas of France, Italy and Switzerland. Tignes received a much needed 5cm (two inch) top up on its Grand Motte glacier and the snow was also good news for Cervinia in Italy which now joins Val Senales and Passo Stelvio as a third skiing choice in the country, although only opening at weekends until November when it resumes full time operations.

In Switzerland Saas Fee and Zermatt remain the two choices with 90 – 150cm (3-5 feet) bases. Plans for Engelberg and the Diavolezza glacier near St Moritz appear to be on hold until more snow falls. Glacier 3000 at Diablerets has opened today for cross country skiing following fresh snow there.

In Scandinavia Ruka in Finland has opened for winter 09-10 and announced that it intends to stay open until at least June 10th, 2010. Two runs with two lifts are currently fully open with another five runs with snowmaking nearing completion of cover,

“Only the European glaciers beat Ruka in the race of opening for winter season during autumn. Ruka has never been forced to shut down prematurely due to lack of snow, so we can proudly call ourselves the most certain choice for skiing in Europe!” said a resort statement. “The secret to this accomplishment lies in the climate, as well as in the high-quality snowmaking machinery – not to forget the snow-how! The 70 snowguns in Ruka produce 1,250 square metres of snow in an hour at full capacity. In good conditions this means the first slope, Saarua number 12, can be opened after a bit over 24 hours of snowmaking beginning.”

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