Arlberg resorts delay opening party

Trying to open ski holiday resorts officially in November is always subject to the vagaries of weather. For the last few seasons I have watched ski tourers in the Arlberg skiing superb powder whilst the lifts were still several weeks from opening - with such a huge operation as the Arlberg lift system takes careful planning to get up and running. In a country that skis from late September onwards it seemed such a waste to be denying so many access to the ski lifts and superb snow, although I am quite sure the ski tourers did not see it that way. Without getting into too much libelous territory, to get my local hill up and running takes a few hours and scouring the local bars and bundling the startled staff into a minibus – flap a few chairlift seats and hey presto. Not so for the mega ski areas – they need to make a pretty hard call and the end of November is usually the compromise between likelihood of sufficient resort level snow and not losing too many customers. Autumn 09 has seen too little snow at resort level in the Arlberg and whilst the glaciers in Austria continue to have superb skiing, and Obergurgl is in full swing the Arlberg resorts have postponed the fireworks for now until the snow reaches the resorts. French resorts tend to open later due to less domestic demand amongst other things – I am sure they are relieved this year, Austria looks like the Antarctic in comparison to the French Alps right now.

18th November 2007 and the 60cm of new snow was lapped by ski tourers – not a moving lift in sight. November 09 and we await the famous Arlberg snow at resort level – image © www.skiingaustria.co.uk