Cold temperatures and natural snowfall have arrived earlier than expected in Colorado, USA allowing Loveland Ski Area, one of the world’s highest altitude resorts, to officially kick-off snowmaking for the 2009-2010 ski season.
Our Trail Maintenance department has been busy preparing the hill, and have started beautifully with all the necessary conditions to start blowing snow. The weather forecast for the next few days looks very favorable for snowmaking,” said Eric Johnstone, Loveland’s Snowmaking and Trail Maintenance Manager. Continue reading ‘Snowmaking kicks into high gear for North American ski season’
The Mountain Riders environmental group has issued a report on its annual spring cleaning activities across French and now British ski areas and note that 3,500 volunteers turned out to clean up the slopes of 55 participating ski resorts collecting in total 30 tonnes of waste from the ski slopes, 56% of it recyclable, 57% of it left by tourists.
“Once again, volunteers responded to our annual call to keep our mountains clean and showed up in force for the annual spring-cleaning sessions organised in the Alps, the Pyrenees, the Vosges, the Massif Central and also in the UK with the Ski Club of Great-Britain. Many thanks go not only to these volunteers, but also to those who organised these positive actions,”
Skiers and film lovers now have a new reason to go skiing in Les Arcs. The first Les Arcs European Film Festival will be staged from December 5th-12th, right at the start of winter, but with ski runs up to 3200 metres and extensive snow making, there should still be plenty of snow to enjoy when you’re not catching a movie.
Les Arcs is actually treating itself to a slightly earlier-than-usual opening under this banner of European culture. With more than 50 feature films being shown on the resort’s eight screens, including previews of four major European films, this is a unique opportunity to try the first snow while enjoying an ambitious and daring film festival.
More than 400 guests from the world of cinema – including actors, directors, producers and journalists – will be attending the event.
The Film Festival Special offer is available for short stays of four days/three nights and costs only €11 per person, per day based on four people sharing a studio apartment. Other special rates are available for other group sizes. www.lesarcs.com / www.paradiski.com
Telluride to expand with new chutes this coming season
When the snow officially sets in for the 2009-10 season, Telluride in Colorado will be expanding it’s terrain with the addition of Gold Hill Chutes 2-5. Local revelers to the ski hill were widely expecting this new expert skiing zone since the opening of Gold Hill Chutes 6-10 opened in 2007-08 and the original Chute 1 in 2008-09.
Chutes 2-5 offer wide-open, above treeline couloirs and chutes dropping 500 vertical metres (1,600 vertical feet).
The resort added two WWII-era howitzers last season to facilitate control of this terrain, which will open as conditions allow.
Terrain expansion is just part of ongoing improvements at Telluride. In the last five years the resort opened Revelation Bowl and the newly built Revelation Lift.
Other developments include two new restaurants, restaurant upgrades, new snowmaking and snow cats, new hike to terrain and the addition of new sun decks. Not only is the town going to be famous for its film festival, but now skiing just got a whole lot better!
Scotland’s snow sports areas are hoping that good snow seasons come in threes after two good snow winters in a row. The five ski centres are again offering a “limited edition” all-areas season pass, with the price held at last year’s level until the end of September.
As we’re hoping for some freezing weather soon, we thought it appropriate to freeze the price!” said Marian Austin, Chair of ski-scotland.
“The all-areas season pass allows our skiers and boarders to choose east or west – wherever’s best, in fact. The pass has proved popular in recent years, particularly following good periods of snow, as we have had the last two winters, and so I’d advise people to order their pass now, while the early bird price is still available.” Continue reading ‘Scottish ski resorts, offer all-areas season pass’
The new owners of Porters Ski Area (formerly Porter Heights) near Canterbury in New Zealand have announced plans to expand the ski area and build a full resort base.
The 10 year, $250 million (NZ) plan would see a ‘carbon-neutral’ year-round resort complex capable of accommodating up to 3,000 people at build-out completed at the base of the slopes and the existing 700 hectare ski area expanded in to the adjoining Crystal Valley aided by a new gondola and access run.
The developers hope the expanded Porters would match nearby Mt Hutt, which currently sells five times as many lift tickets, and help build Canterbury in to another international resort town destination for New Zealand along side Christchurch.
New Torre di Pisa run promises to challenge all skiers this winter
Tough New Run In The Dolomites
The Ski Center Latemar in the Val di Fiemme/Obereggen district of the Italian Dolomites is one of the few in the world to be debuting a new piste this season.
The new “Torre di Pisa” is described as a technical run and will provide an alternative route down to the existing “5 Nazioni“ slope in the Passo Feudo/Predazzo sector.
The run is 1,550m long and has a vertical drop of 460m with gradients of up to 59%.
The new run is served by the “Gardonè/Passo Feudo“ high speed quad chairlift and the area is included on the Dolomiti Supereski pass.
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