Well, well – look who just got back on skis.
Last Saturday, seven months after her nasty knee injury in Schladming, Lindsey Vonn clicked back into her skis. She’s currently training with the American ski team at Portillo in Chile, at the start of a racing season which we hope will climax at the Winter Olympics in Sochi – and she seems to be in good shape. Mentally refreshed, too. Here’s the video of her first day back on skis.
It’s not the only interesting piece of video to come out of Chile recently: the Tecnica Blizzard team posted some rather tasty freeskiing footage from Portillo recently, too.
Today, there’s a little more fresh snow in Portillo, but lately spring has had a firm grip on conditions in the Andes. The same is true of the Snowy Mountains of Australia, where the heavy snow and bluebird powder days of August are a fading memory. Now, resorts in the region are working hard to hold onto their snow – as you’ll see from this picture from Thredbo, below.
Meanwhile, over in NZ there’s been fresh snow. Of the big South Island ski fields, Mount Hutt had the best of it, picking up 30cm on September 4: but it was a mixed blessing as blizzard conditions closed the road back down the mountain for a time, stranding staff, skiers and a group of children from Mt Hutt College. Cue some nifty work from the resort on Facebook to reassure anxious parents…
And what of the Alps? Well, after another warm and sunny spell, heavy rain is in the forecast for Sunday and Monday. Meteo Chamonix is forecasting snow down to 2300m in the French Alps on Sunday night – and our Alpine snow forecast is predicting snow in eastern Switzerland and Austria on Monday and Tuesday. It doesn’t look like it’s going to be anything significant, even for early autumn. But that won’t stop us getting excited all the same…
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France: currently, all the French glaciers are closed for skiing. The Grande Motte glacier above Tignes reopens on October 12. |
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Switzerland: You can still ski on the glacier above Zermatt, and links over to Cervinia are open too. At last, Saas Fee’s glacier is open for late-summer skiing, too. |
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Austria: you can currently ski on the Hintertux and the Molltal glaciers. The Kitzsteinhorn glacier expects to reopen in mid to late September. |
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Italy: access to high-altitude skiing above Cervinia closes on September 8. |
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Andorra: Andorra’s ski resorts are now closed for the summer. |
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Western USA: all the mainstream ski resorts are now closed, but you can still make turns at Timberline Lodge on Mount Hood in Oregon. |
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Western Canada: The glacier above Whistler has now closed for summer skiing. |
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