It’s the best conditions this season, and equaling the best for the past few seasons, on Scottish ski slopes at present. An online post from Nevis Range ski centre advises, “The skiing is far too good to go to work today so call in sick now!” They add that their ski patrol report that the skiing is exceptional from their morning safety inspection. Nevis Range, 13th February 2020 Up to now Scotland’s ski season has played out in a similar fashion to recent years with some good snowfalls but then temperatures rising soon afterwards so the snow largely melts away making it difficult to build a base. This time though Storm Ciara kept dumping for four days and currently it

The Norwegian branch of the World Wildlife Fund, WWF, working with clothing company Bergans, have launched an initiative to ‘Save the Seasons’ in a bid to have them added, and thus preserved, as part of UNESCO’s World Heritage list. Pyramids, temples, Stonehenge, reefs and... seasons? Everything previously included on UNESCO’s World Heritage list is either a physical object, building or city, but WWF think that the changing seasons due to climate change threaten much of what is on the list, yet, aren’t considered in the preservation of these sites or as a heritage for future generations. “The seasons are the very foundation of life, which in turn is directly linked to our cultural heritage. The seasons must therefore be declared

Issued: 12 February 2020 By Patrick "Snowhunter" Thorne North American Roundup European Roundup Asia Roundup INTRODUCTION NORTH AMERICA The weekend snowstorms in the Rockies brought up to five feet (1.5 metres) of snowfall. Alta Ski Area in Utah, pictured yesterday, was one of the big winners. Although it has kept dumping down for a sixth (or is it seventh?) week in the Pacific Northwest the big snow news story of the last seven days in North America has probably been the huge snowfalls in the Rockies.  The storm has brought deep powder but also, in the short term, lots of less welcome factors like access roads closed by too much snow and avalanche danger. Lifts and runs closed for similar

Dave McCoy, one of the remaining legends from the early history of downhill skiing, and one of the biggest names in ski resort development through much of the twentieth century, has died at the age of 104. Born in 1915, McCoy’s legend include the fact that he made his first skis himself whilst still at school, and then became Californian state skiing champion aged 22. He set up his first rudimentary ski area in 1938, before hitting on the more snowsure location for Mammoth Mountain in 1942. Mammoth started with a simple home-made roadside rope tow, powered by an old truck engine, but over the next 63 years, McCoy and his wife Roma, whom he’d met in the late 1930s,

As the time of writing it is just over three weeks since my last article which sadly had to be heavy on the theme of ‘lack of snow’ over the first part of the winter season here in Japan. Unfortunately, that general trend continued for a few more weeks (and sadly is continuing in some regions). The Chinese New Year holidays are increasingly a time when people from Asia are visiting Japan to come and celebrate their holidays. Many choose a ski holiday or a chance to just visit snowy areas so that they can ‘play in the snow’. This year, the Chinese New Year celebrations generally were from 25th January onwards. Of course, that was just about when the