Canadian Resort Re-Opens For Father’s Day Weekend, Again

For a third year in a row, Mount Washington will operate on Father's Day weekend for skiing and boarding. The resort will spin the Whiskey Jack Chairlift from 10am to 4pm on June 16 and 17th.
"We recently completed another stellar snow season up here so the writing was on the wall back in April- we were contemplating another summer snow session", explains resort spokesperson Brent Curtain.
To make some turns on the summer corn snow, tickets will cost $25 per person and rental skis and boards will be an additional $25. If you pre-purchase your tickets and rentals online at mountwashington.ca you get an additional 10% discount.
The mountain is confirming that Linton's Loop will be open top to bottom that weekend but will determine if more runs can open closer to June 16. "We want to see what the weather brings over the next week before we commit to the number of runs we can open", adds Curtain.
For fans of the terrain park, a selection of rails and features will be setup mid-mountain.
While summer ski days are an anomaly over the resort's 33 years of operation, massive snowfalls in the last few seasons have resulted in an influx of summer snow turns.
"Four of our five deepest snow years have all occurred in the last few years. We're definitely in a deep cycle for snowfall so it's not surprising to see the snow last this long".
As a bonus for heading up to the summer ski weekend, all skiers and boarders will receive a two for one Mile High Chairlift Ride voucher. There will also be prizes handed out throughout the weekend for best outfits and costumes.

Southern Hemisphere 2012 Season Underway

Following the early opening of Perisher in Australia blast week, more Australian ski areas and the first New Zealand ski areas are all opening this weekend (June 9th/10th).
Southern Africa’s only operational ski area, Afriski in Lesotho, has also opened this week.
In New Zealand there’s thankfully been no repeat of 2011’s warm May/June and instead increasingly healthy snowfalls have helped build up bases. Cantabrians are gearing up for their much anticipated first day on the slopes thanks to a snow dump that has blanketed Mt Hutt ski area. Mt Hutt will officially open for the winter season tomorrow (Saturday June 9) with an average snow base of 65cm across the entire mountain – believed to be the deepest in the southern hemisphere at present. Mt Hutt Ski Area Manager James McKenzie said the forecast for opening was fine and sunny with light winds. "It should be an outstanding day to kick off the 2012 season", he said. "We’ll be opening with the Summit Six Chair, Exhibition Quad and of course our beginners Magic Carpet area all operating. (...) We’re currently assessing Towers Triple Chair but are suggesting that only advanced to intermediate skiers head over there, as it is not currently groomed", he said.
Mr McKenzie said visitors to Mt Hutt tomorrow were likely to require chains on 2WD from either the Info Booth at the bottom of the ski area access road, or Canterbury View just after the 5 km mark. "People heading to the mountain tomorrow should check the snow report to make sure they’re well prepared and always carry snow chain equipment as conditions can change very quickly up here", he said.
In Australia Mt Baw Baw was coated with a thick blanket of fresh snow this week, 20cm in fact! "A great start to the first week of winter and positive signs for a snow-filled season ahead at Mt Baw Baw", they say, while at Mt Buller the snowmaking team have been working around the clock to get the mountain white for the weekend and say there are some nice piles of snow building up all over the resort thanks to cold nights and good snowmaking conditions.
Mt Hotham says that on top of natural snowfall snowmaking kicked off there in the early hours of 29 May on the Big D.
Since then they have been making snow on the Big D, Summit Trainer, Sun Run and Swindler's Trail whenever conditions allow. Last Sunday morning saw the resort blanketed in white after overnight snowfalls and they’ve since received 25cm of fresh snow with more snowfalls forecast.

Where To Ski or Board In June?

Alps. Although the choice of ski areas open in the Alps at the start of June is limited to just four areas – the Dachstein (which currently has a base of more than 4.5m) and Hintertux glaciers in Austria, Zermatt in Switzerland and Passo Stelvio in Italy; that will all change in a few weeks’ time when half a dozen more areas are scheduled to open for summer skiing and snowboarding. These include French resorts Les 2 Alpes, Tignes (both opening on June 16th) and Val d’Isere - which opens first on June 9th. In Italy Val Senales and Cervinia re-open on the 16th and 20th June respectively. Summer skiing in the Alps mostly takes place between 7am and 1pm daily.

Scandinavia. In Scandinavia the three Norwegian summer ski areas of Folgefonn, Galdhoppigen and Stryn are all reporting huge bases of over 8m. Ruka in Finland still has it’s ‘summer’ slope open that helps it stay open for 8 months each (normal) ‘season’ from mid-October to mid-June. This year it plans to keep the slope open to June 10th.

North America. In North America there’s no repeat of last year’s snowy-late-spring and even stalwarts like Mammoth have closed ‘already.’ However Timberline in Oregon, the only year-round snowfield is open in the USA, as is Crystal Mountain in Washington state, “We will remain open for skiing June 2-3 and 9-10, possibly longer if conditions allow,” they say. North of the border all ski areas in Canada are currently closed but Whistler Blackcomb re-opens for glacier skiing on June 23rd and remains open to July 29th. There was over 2.1m (7 feet) of snow lying there on the 1st of June.

Southern Hemisphere. In the southern hemisphere Perisher in Australia will be the first resort to open, this Saturday, 2nd June, a week earlier than planned, thanks to 30cm of fresh snow plus snowmaking. Other Australian resorts are expected to follow as scheduled a week later. These include Mt Buller which will open the country’s only new chairlift this winter, a quad chair.
There have also been promising signs in New Zealand where opening was delayed last year by record warm months of May and June 2011, this year there have been re-assuring pre-season snowfalls and most resorts expect to open between June 9th and June 23rd with Coronet Peak and Mt Hutt among the first expecting to open.
Across the Pacific resorts across South America should also be opening for their 2012 winter in the next few weeks and again the signs are good with pre-season snow accumulations. New lifts include a quad chair for Las Lenas in Argentina and the first gondola in Chile at Valle Nevado.
Finally in Africa, Afri-ski in Lesotho, the only commercial snowfield in the south of the continent and the southern hemisphere has been snowmaking in recent cold temperatures and is on target to open on June 6th, next week.