More than a dozen North American ski areas open for July holiday weekend

11 ski areas in the USA and two in Canada will open for the coming holiday weekend in both countries. Friday July 1st is ‘Canada Day’ in Canada and Monday July 4th ‘Independence Day’ in the US. Although several resorts – most notably Mammoth in California thanks to its huge snowfalls and Whistler in Canada thanks to its glaciers – are usually open in July, never before has the total ran in to double figures.

Most of the re-opening resorts are in California which saw huge snowfalls right up to May because of an El Nino affect on the precipitation in the region – most resorts set new snowfall records last winter and still have bases of at least two metres (over six feet) on upper slopes.

Mammoth has been open every day since last November but several other Californian resorts are re-opening for this weekend only including Alpine Meadows, Donner Summit, Kirkwood, Sugarbowl and Squaw Valley after having been closed for at least a month.

In Utah Snowbird and Snowbasin have been opening at weekends through June and will continue to next weekend. The same is true of Crystal Mountain in Washington State and Arapahoe Basin in Colorado. Timberline on Mt Hood in Oregon is a summer ski destination which will stay open through the summer.

North of the border Whistler’s Blackcomb glacier is open as usual by Mount Washington on Vancouver Island will open in July for the first time for the coming weekend only.