6 European Resorts Open Thanks To Snowfarming
6 European Resorts Open Thanks To Snowfarming
Published : 09-Nov-2024 07:42
Six European ski areas are currently open in four countries thanks to snow-farming, the practice of stockpiling snow from the previous season through the summer then spreading it back out on the slopes in Autumn as temperatures, hopefully, cool.
Kitzbuhel is the latest resort to open some runs using the technique with about a kilometre of slopes opening at its Resterkogel area this weekend.
It joins Switzerland's Adelboden and Murren (pictured) which have opened with farmed snow in recent weeks.
In Scandinavia, Sweden's Kandalis ski area is open with a slope made of farmed snow but Finland's Ruka and Levi, are the main experts in snow farming creating over 2km of slopes, terrain parks and additional cross-country trails which opened more than a month ago.
However, even here, despite storing record amounts of snow last summer, limits to the concept appeared as a warm October and early November made the snow soft and had the resorts battling top maintain it. That's different to most years when natural snowfall and low temperatures for new snowmaking soon after the snow is re-spread on to the slopes keep it fresh.
That has now happened in the last week though and the FIS just gave the green light to Levi's running of the next stage of the Alpine Skiing World Cup next weekend.
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