Kitzbuhel in Austria is the highest profile ski resort yet to open (very) early for winter 2009-10 as the ski season catches everyone by surprise by starting two months ahead of schedule!
Cold weather across much of the northern hemisphere, bringing with it heavy snow in some cases, or simply low enough temperatures for the snow guns to operate long enough to build up a good base for the ski runs has allowed over a dozen resorts to open early in Canada, the US, Austria, Italy, France and Switzerland as well as Scandinavian countries.
Snow has also been reported in the Indian Himalayas, the Japan Alps and the Spanish Pyrenees, where Formigal and Baqueira Beret both reported six inches of pre-season snow in the past few days.
Kitzbuhel’s opening comes two months ahead of its traditional opening in mid-December and beats last year’s early opening in November, which was six-weeks ahead of the planned opening date and , until this weekend, the earliest opening in the resort’s 80 year history.
The famous Tirolean resort had announced it will open at weekends for the next few weeks and then full time. Many other Austrian resorts have enough snow too open, but are waiting until their normal opening date anyway because the cost of preparing the pistes and running lifts exceeds likely income from ticket sales at this time of year.
In the US half a dozen ski areas are open including Sunday River in Maine. To the north Mont Saint Sauveur in Canada has opened as had Olympic Park near Calgary in Alberta.
In Scandinavia half a dozen resorts open include Ruka in Finland and Funasdalen in Sweden. Bormio in Italy has announced it will open on Halloween, October 31st, joining Cervinia.
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