Photo montage: © Dover Tourism.

Hats off to Vera! It’s not all bad news, guys. We may have missed much of what should have been a magical season, but the next turn is never too far away. Someone up there with a pretty cruel sense of humour dumped 1.5m of perfect powder on the slopes of Val d’Isere on what should have the final day of the season – and the picture was a similar one across other high altitude resorts across the Alps. But it’s left the glaciers in picture perfect condition.

No, don’t get overexcited, they’re not open, and in the time of coronavirus reliable information is a discontinued commodity. Val d’Isere’s still on schedule to open its three public runs on the Pisaillas glacier from June 6. Tignes and Les 2 Alpes might do the same, along with Zermatt which seems good to go. Hintertux seems a mite more hesitant, waiting no doubt to see when the frontier with Germany properly reopens.

There are, of course, a few problems…travel in France is limited to 100km from home. If lifts do open it seems that the only people social distancing on the chair-lifts will be the locals and that’s probably not commercially viable – but, hell, it’s a move in the right direction. Resorts in New Zealand and Argentina are still planning to go ahead with their seasons.

For us, it remains a cliffhanger, But we know we’ll ski again some sunny day…

From an original idea by Nick Morgan of Le Ski.