A number of ski areas in Europe and North America that wouldn’t normally be open to the latter half of May have announced extended ski seasons for at least another week. Some are crediting good snow conditions for their decisions, others the e4asing of pandemic restrictions where they’re located, some both. Around 50 ski areas remain open this weekend, but for about a third of these, this Sunday will be the last of the season, including three resorts still open in Finland, two of which (Levi & Ruka) have clocked up a seven month season since opening in early October and now have less than five months to wait until the 21-22 season starts for them. Winter Park Among the

Last Updated 6 May 2021 at 16.00 GMT (Updates so far since commenced on 5 May 2020: 647 The web's most comprehensive guide of ski resorts opening around the world during the pandemic. An estimated 50+ Ski Areas Are Currently Open Worldwide in at least 20 Countries on 3 Continents including: Asia: Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey. Europe: Armenia, Austria, Finland, Georgia, Norway, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine. North America: Canada, USA Ski areas in Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Lebanon, Lithuania, Mongolia, Morocco, Pakistan*, Poland and Portugal wanted to open but governments in their countries or region have deemed it is not virus-safe to do so during the ski season. (*Closed due to business issues not virus). Most ski areas in the

Issued: 5 May 2021 By Patrick "Snowhunter" Thorne European Roundup North American Roundup Asia Roundup Southern Hemisphere WORLD OVERVIEW Åre resort this week Moving into May, the six months of debate over whether or not thousands of ski areas can operate in the Northern Hemisphere (due to different pandemic restrictions in different countries) begins to seem less important as more than 99% of ski areas have now closed anyway as a result of the natural end to the season. Indeed, May is normally one of the quietest periods in the global ski year anyway as the Northern Hemisphere’s season winds down but the Southern Hemisphere’s has not yet started and 2021 is looking no different.  Actually, there may be just slightly

Polish ski mountaineer Andrzej Bargiel has become the first man to summit Yawash Sar II (6,178m  / 20,269 ft) in the Karakoram range in Pakistan. He is then reported to have skied down to the mountain’s base. Andrzej Bargiel, who was the first man top successfully summit and ski down the world’s second highest peak, K2, in 2018, climbed with Yendrek Baranowski setting off from Base Camp before camping at 5,100m, then departing for the top at 4am. Images from Andrzej Bargiel Instagram The duo are reported to have made the ascent sooner than originally planned as Pakistan intends to enforce a tourism travel shuts down on May 8 to limit COVID spread during the end-of-Ramadan holidays. Laila Peak Before

British snowboard star Billy Morgan stayed close to home this past winter with many of Europe's alpine resorts closed and he used the time to become a splitboarding convert on a fun trip up to Scotland. Southampton-born Morgan broke through onto the global scene with second place overall in the 2012-13 FIS World Cup snowboard Slopestyle rankings before placing 10th at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games. Billy Morgan / split boarding / hiking up Bold Rush Gully at Aonach Mor In April 2015, Morgan landed the world's first "quad cork" then went on to win his first Winter X Games medal with Big Air bronze in 2016 and repeated that feat at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang. For this