The subject of the price of ski and board carriage charged by nearly all airlines has been our pet moan for several months now, with the leading offender being Ryanair, who seems to think it’s good customer service to charge £80/80€ for return carriage of one pair of skis or a snowboard.

Well, maybe the airline is listening to the negative comments, as the lowest of the low cost airlines has announced today that it is offering free ski and board carriage for the first 10,000 passengers who book a return ski flight before midnight on Wednesday the 11th November.

Ski flights operated by Ryanair include Grenoble from Birmingham, Liverpool and Stansted as well as Turin from Bristol, East Midlands and Stansted.

You can book your Rynair flights with Skyscanner.

After more than two feet of snow fell on the slopes of Colorado in recent days, the first of the famous ski state’s larger international destination ski resorts will begin opening today.

Copper Mountain and Keystone will join three small areas that have already been open for several weeks, Arapahoe Basin, Loveland and Wolf Creek.

Keystone Resort announced it will open earlier than planned, today November 5th, thanks to fresh snow on the mountain and a spate of cold temperatures that provided ideal conditions for Keystone’s talented snowmaking team.

Japan’s Kazuhiro Kokubo won the men’s halfpipe at the snowboard World Cup event in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, while Australian Torah Jane won the women’s event.

Kokubo produced a superb display run to score 46.1 in his first run, and though he crashed to a 7.3 in his second run his opening score was good enough to give him victory.

France’s Mathiue Crepel was second and Finland’s Peetu Piiroinen third.

Up to 20cm of new snow fell in parts of Austria this week, providing excellent riding on the open glacier ski areas.

10cm of snow was reported down in the valley at Hintertux (10/150cm) and even more fell on the glacier.

The Rettenbach glacier at Solden (10/86cm) received fresh snow on Wednesday night. Six lifts were open on Thursday morning, accessing pistes varying from blue to black in difficulty.

The full winter area is yet to open but the glacier skiing area is in excellent condition following this week’s fresh snowfall.

Obergurgl plans to open for their winter ski season on 13th November and, with wintry weather currently dominating the area, they should have great snow conditions for their first few weeks.

In a largely symbolic move, people in a ski resort town voted to legalize adult possession of marijuana.

Breckenridge voters passed the measure by a margin of 73 percent. It allows adults over 21 years old to possess up to an ounce of marijuana. The ordinance also removes criminal penalties for the possession of drug paraphernalia.

Resorts are issuing dozens of powder alarms as heavy snow is falling across the Alps. More than 25 alarms have been issued in the past 24 hours for top resorts in Switzerland, Austria, France and Italy. The falls in the Alps follow heavy snow in Scandinavia at the weekend with resorts like Beitostølen in Norway, adding 46cm (18 inches) in the past seven days.

Val Gardena is one of the big winners at present reporting 80cm (nearly three feet) of new snow, 40cm (16 inches) of it in the past 24 hours, however it is not due to officially open until the end of the month. Bormio however has opened, for weekend skiing, joining the glacier ski areas of Cervinia (now open daily after weekend opening in October), Passo Stelvio and Val Senales. Many other ski resorts in the dolomites received up to 50cm (20 inches) of new snow, Cortina reported 45cm (18 inches).