Ski Areas Re-open in Europe and North America in June and July
The number of ski areas that will re-open for summer skiing or boarding over the next four weeks in the northern hemisphere, just as the main season gets underway in the southern hemisphere, looks set to be more than usual in 2017.
Ski areas will re-open in Canada and the USA in North America; Finland and Norway in Scandinavia; and France, Italy and Switzerland in the Alps, in addition to the half-dozen or so ski areas including Mammoth (pictured below), Squaw Valley, Arapahoe Basin and Timberline in the US plus the Zermatt, Hintertux (pictured top) and Kitzsteinhorn glaciers that have been operating since last autumn, 2016.
Finland’s Saariselkä ski area announced at the weekend that it will be re-opening for three days only this Thursday to Saturday June 8-10. With near 4 hour daylight at its northerly latitude there’ll be skiing until 10pm and half-rice lift passes. The move comes after fresh snowfall in the past few days on the still metre-deep snow base on the slopes.
The Riksgranen ski area in Sweden is open until midsummer and Norway’s three glacier areas at Folgefonn (Fonna) Stryn (below) and Gldhoppigen are also open or opening for summer skiing and boarding.
In the Alps June marks the re-opening of three of the country’s glacier ski areas – Les 2 Alpes, Tignes and Val d’Isere which join Passo Stelvio (below) in Italy which re-opened at the end of May. A second Italian ski area, Cervinia, will re-open to offer crops-border summer skiing to year round Zermatt and a second Swiss option, Saas Fee, begins its 9 month long ski season in mid-July.
Across the Atlantic Whistler Blackcomb opens for five weeks of glacier skiing this weekend and a number of US resorts will be re-opening to join those four centres still open from last winter.
Copper Mountain in Colorado is using stockpiled winter snow (plus quite a bit of fresh that feel in May) to re-open a summer snow terrain park.
Boreal in California has similar plans, running a ‘summer shred’; session this weekend (June 10th), probably helped by it’s all weather snowmaking machine acquired last year, although it too has had a whole lot of the natural stuff so probably has enough lying around without needing to turn it on.
Finally (?) Mt Bachelor in Oregon has announced plans to re-open for skiing for three days over the 4th of July weekend due to all the snow there too.
