France Opens for Skiing Today
23rd November 2024
Val Thorens, Tignes and Chamonix are the first resorts to open. We also look at conditions across the Alps in our new and updated snow report direct from the Alps. NEW
With significant snow this week there are some of the best conditions on the opening weekend in the three French resorts in recent years.
Tignes has seen perhaps the most amount of snow with well over 1m above 2,200m from the recent storms.
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Val Thorens is starting its season which goes through to the first weekend of May.
“La Grande Première is an unmissable event for ski enthusiasts, offering the ideal opportunity to warm up, sharpen up and plan for the approaching winter,” said a spokesperson from Val Thorens.
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However, the opening has been marred by an accident to the Cime Caron cable car this week that injured six workers, two seriously.
It remains out of action as an investigation continues.
Chamonix is also partially opening.
The three resorts are the first to open in France, though many resorts have been open for several weeks in Austria, Italy and Switzerland.
We detail them lower down this article.
PlanetSKI’s James Cove arrived in Gurgl in Austria on Friday for the first PlanetSKI trip of the winter.
It is looking rather good.
PlanetSKI in Austria. Image c/o PlanetSKI
PlanetSKI in Austria. Image © PlanetSKI
Snow was falling on arrival on Friday evening.
Gurgl is the first non-glacier Austrian resort to open.
Its base is not as deep as when it opened last year, but has 30km (19 miles) of slopes open already.
PlanetSKI is in Gurgl for the men’s and women’s alpine ski slalom World Cup.
See here for a full report:
Gurgl World Cup. Image © PlanetSKI
Do check later for a further update from James on conditions in Gurgl and elsewhere in Austria.
Austria has not seen the levels of snow that have been falling in the norther western Alps and the resorts in France and Switzerland, but conditions remain good for the time of year.
For an overview across the Alps we turn to Fraser Wilkin from weathertoski.co.uk who posted on Friday.
“In the Alps another 20-50cm fell across a wide swathe of the north-western Alps (roughly from Grenoble through much of Switzerland and into the west of Austria).
“The far north-west of Italy also did well.
“Further east, much of Austria also saw at least a few centimetres of snow (with much more in the far west).
“There was also a sprinkling in the Dolomites which, despite not having seen that much snow fall this week, have been able to operate their snowmaking at full throttle thanks to the cold temperatures.
“Resorts that have done best this week are those in France, Switzerland and the far north-west of Italy.
“Snowfall totals recorded since Monday are unreliable due to strong winds, but are certainly in the 80-120cm range (with 150cm+ in places) above 2200m in the likes of Tignes, La Rosière/La Thuile, Verbier, Zermatt and Engelberg, to name just a few.”
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More than 70 ski areas have now opened in more than a dozen countries in Asia, Europe and North America.
As promised here are some of the ski areas in the Alps that are now open:
Austria
- Hintertux,
- Pitztal,
- Stubai,
- Soelden,
- Kaunertal,
- Moltaller,
- Gurgl,
- Kitzbuhel,
France
- Tignes,
- Val Thorens
- Chamonix
Italy
- Passo Stelvio
- Val Senales
- Cervinia
- Sulden
Switzerland
- Adelboden
- Engleberg
- Murren
- St Moritz
- Saas-Fee
- Zermatt
- Glacier 3000
- Davos
Elsewhere in Europe Scandinavia has seen fresh snow and cold temperatures.
There remains just a handful of ski areas open in Finland, Norway and Sweden but bigger resorts including Are, Geilo, Hemsedal, Pyha, Yllas and Trysil are set to open shortly.
There’s currently no ski area open in the Pyrenees yet but Baqueira Beret in Spain has snow falling and hopes to open shortly.
In Asia, some Japanese ski areas have been posting their first decent dumps of the autumn on higher slopes with 20-40cm accumulations ahead of official opening dates.
This winter PlanetSKI will be in Japan from the end of January to the beginning of March – six weeks in total – so we will be keeping a close eye on the snow conditions over the coming weeks.
In the Alps the temperature is now set to shoot up and the freezing level could be at 3,500m shortly so much of the snow at low altitude will melt.
We will be updating later today on the opening of skiing in France, and conditions in the other areas across the Alps.
Do check back…
