2020’s Glacier Ski Season Taking Shape in A Locked-down World
2020’s Glacier Ski Season Taking Shape in A Locked-down World
Published : 12-May-2020 03:41
With most of the world's skiing nations slowly easing restrictions on public life, an increasing number of glacier ski areas appear confident that they'll be open in some form over the next few months.
The three glacier ski areas in Norway, the first European ski nation to really start to ease its lockdown three weeks ago, have already started opening and all three should be operating by the last weekend of this month.
In Austria, which is perhaps moving the fastest of the major Alpine nations the Kitzsteinhorn and Hintertux glaciers will also open on the day the country allows ski lifts to start running again, May 29th. A third Austrian glacier, the Molltal, will open a week later at the start of June and it is believed that the Kaunertal also plan to re-open around then if they can reach agreement to do so.
National race team training is a driving factor behind some glaciers opening and it has been reported that the Austrian team have already got back on snow for training on the (closed to the public) Kaunertal and Solden glaciers. The French ski team is saying to start training on the glacier at Val d'Isere on June 6th and the Italians have booked the Stelvio glacier and a large hotel next to it for exclusive use through June. However, it is understood neither country's teams have as yet got final permission from their governments to use the facilities.
They are pointing out however that the usual southern hemisphere training this summer look highly unlikely to be able to happen with ongoing travel bans.
Along with Val d'Isere but Les 2 Alpes and Tignes say they are working with local authorities in France with the hope of opening for their summer ski seasons later in June, pretty much as scheduled.
Zermatt in Switzerland has targeted June 8th as the day when their year-round skiing operation may resume, if all goes well over the intervening period.
Over in North America Whistler Blackcomb has still not ruled out re-opening for it's June-July glacier skiing on the Horstman Glacier.
There are no glacier ski areas in the US but the Beartooth Basin summer ski area in Montana hopes to open on May 30th and the Timberline Lodge ski area hopes to re-open in the next few weeks after Oregon's governor said she intended for them to be able to following the latest easing of restrictions in that state.
It goes without saying that summer 2020 openings will see only locally-based skiers and borders on the slopes, in lower numbers, socially distanced and with all the other virus-spread-reduction initiatives in place.
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