It's still early-days but this months snowfall in the Alps appears to have laid the base for a great start to the season, with high resorts like Val Thorens saying they already have enough snow to see them through the whole season ahead. The past week has seen more big accumulations of typically 50-100cm (20-40") on high slopes, 10-20cm (4-8") at resort level, the latest is a month which began with big snowfalls too. It's all very different to the start of last season when ski areas struggled for cover below 1,800m altitude. It also comes after a warmest and dry first half of autumn/fall. Tignes is pictured above after fresh snow yesterday, Avoriaz below after a snowfall on November

Issued: 29th November 2023 By Patrick "Snowhunter" Thorne European Roundup North American Roundup Asia Roundup World Overview It's almost December and the pre-season preparations are reaching their climax at thousands of ski areas across the northern hemisphere while more than 150 have now opened, fairly evenly divided between Europe and North America, with the main Japanese ski season expected to start next week with snowfalls increasing there. Europe is currently leading in terms of snowfall totals and terrain open with the first ski areas in the world to offer more than 150km (93 miles) of slopes open this season in Austrian and France. It’s also the continent that has seen the most snowfall in November, with several resorts having received

Maison Sport speaks to us about choosing the right type of ski lesson for you…About Maison Sport: Maison Sport is the industry leading booking platform for ski and snowboard lessons. Maison Sport currently operates in over 430 resorts across Europe and has over 1,000 highly rated instructors on their platform, as well as ski school group lessons in many of Europe’s most popular resorts. The Maison Sport platform has been created to help you discover the right instructor for you and your family. We provide direct access to a handpicked community of the very best instructors, enabling you to tailor your family’s experience on the slopes. Giving you more security, more control and more wonderful memories to take home. With

The French Compagnie des Alpes Group has announced that it wants rail companies from across Europe to big to supply international rail services to their resorts over the next three years. Compagnies des Alpes operates a holiday company subsidiary, Travelski, which has offered rail holidays from London St Pancras to 10 of its resorts for the past few winters, for 23-24 using the newly relaunched Eurostar Snow Train service. The company’s resorts include many of France, Europe and the world’s biggest, La Plagne, Les Arcs, Peisey-Vallandry, Tignes, Val d’Isère, Les Menuires, Méribel, Serre Chevalier, Flaine and Samoëns – Morillon – Sixt-Fer-à-Cheval. Compagnies des Alpes say they are seeking bids from rail companies in France, the UK, the Netherlands and Belgium

Argentina’s Las Leñas ski area has caused some surprise by announcing that it plans to operate summer skiing this season. Summer skiing is offered by about a dozen ski areas in Europe’s alps and Scandinavia and a few areas in Japan and north America, but the numbers offering it have ben falling for over 20 years, as has the length of the summer ski seasons that remain. Las Lenas Summer/Verano Skiing However summer skiing is fairly unheard of at southern hemisphere resorts although some New Zealand ski areas, most notably on Mt Ruapehu, have managed to stay open to the start of summer some occasionally. Las Leñas says summer skiers can take its highest lift to the summit at 3470