It appears that a huge lift project talked about for decades now has finance secured and will finally be built, with a 2025 opening date given. The ‘Funiflaine’ lift which envisages a lift up from the valley floor to the Flaine ski resort has been talked about for about as long as the nearly 60 years the resort has existed. In the early 2000s a serious study in to the realities of such a lift was commissioned and the project was revisited around 2009, but the project has never got off the ground primarily because it fell short of a perceived cost/benefit ratio …up to now. Now though, climate change concerns seem to be behind the project finally getting the

Last Updated 21 June 2021 at 16.30 GMT (Updates so far since commenced on 5 May 2020: 769 The web's most comprehensive guide of ski resorts opening around the world during the pandemic. An estimated 50+ Ski Areas Are Currently Open Worldwide in at least 12 Countries on 5 Continents including: Africa: Lesotho Asia: Japan. Europe: Austria, France, Italy, Norway, Russia, Slovenia, Switzerland. North America: USA. Oceania: Australia, New Zealand. Ski areas in Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Lebanon, Lithuania, Mongolia, Morocco, Poland and Portugal had wanted to open during the winter of 20-21 but governments in their countries or region deemed it not virus-safe to do so.  Besides those not permitted to open, most ski areas in the northern hemisphere and all

Glencoe ski area in Scotland has announced it is to run its now traditional Midsummer ski this coming Saturday 19th June. The ski centre usually runs its lifts as close as it can to the longest day each summer – which is particularly long in the Highlands of Scotland – for an hour or so to allow determined skiers to access the remaining snow patches on the slopes. Some recent Midsummer skis have been cancelled due to pandemic restrictions or too little snow but this year it is back on, all being well. “The longest snow patch left is on the Spring Run at between 250 and 300m long. The longest patch in the Main Basin is now only 120

Norway’s Stryn glacier summerski area will end its very short 2021 season this Sunday by staging the Norwegian 2021 Monoski Championships. The resort only opened for its 2021 season less than a month ago, on May 27th, but says that recent strong winds and rain have so severely impacted its snow cover it will be forced to close much earlier than expected for the season. “The snow disappears at record speed,” confirmed a ski area spokesperson. In fact the bad weather has led to it closing from Monday to Wednesday this week, but it hopes to open from Thursday through to Sunday and there’s good weather forecast for the weekend. Stryn To bring a bit of cheer for the early

Issued: 16 June 2021 By Patrick "Snowhunter" Thorne European Roundup North American Roundup Asia Roundup Southern Hemisphere WORLD OVERVIEW Afriski opens for business More ski areas have been opening for the 2021 season this past week in the Southern Hemisphere with Afriski the first in Africa to do so. More resorts have opened in Australia and New Zealand too although the news isn’t all good. Whilst Australian areas had one of their best starts in years, thanks to a huge snowfall just before the weekend, things warmed up in New Zealand after the big fall there to end May and Cardrona actually put their opening date back a week. For South America, it remains uncertain with some resorts delaying opening due