French and Italian Ski Areas Start Seasons this Weekend

Lift-served piste skiing will return to France and Italy for the first time this season this weekend.

The French ski resort of La Clusaz will run its ski lifts free of charge on Sunday and Monday whilst Italy’s Pontedilegno-Tonale in the province of Trentino will open for skiing on the Presena Glacier on Saturday and Sunday.

Both ski areas will require advanced ticket reservations and have limited numbers available. In the case of La Clusaz the resort has announced tickets will be free of charge.

La Clusaz say there’s plenty of snow left on their Balme ski slopes and the snow is also reported to be lying deep on the Presena glacier.  There has also been fresh snowfall this week with unseasonably cold weather in the Alps.

French and Italian ski areas, along with those in Germany, announced ski lifts should closed in late autumn and it is more than six months since they have operated for skiers – wiping out the 20-21 season for most resorts. 

Ski resorts in France were open for ski touring and other outdoor activities that didn’t involves using ski lifts. Ski areas in Austria could open but there was no hotels or restaurants open and overnight stays in resorts was not permitted. Swiss resorts stayed open with pandemic spread prevention measures in place. German ski areas stayed close all winter except for one region which allowed centres to open from March to May.

Around a dozen glacier ski areas are currently open in Austria, Switzerland and Norway with Les 2 Alpes in France and Passo Stelvio in Italy expected to open on the last weekend of May and Cervinia, Tignes and Val d’isere in June.

Travel is opening up across Europe once more too although it is currently a very fragmented picture and changing daily and at different rates in different countries.