The two open Swiss glacier ski areas of Sass Fee and neighbouring Zermatt continue to offer the best conditions on the continent at present. Both received more than a foot of fresh snow a few weeks ago. Snow depths at both remain about 1.2m (four feet) and terrain park features are in good shape.

There’s no change in Austria where the Kitzsteinhorn’s ‘temporary closure’ due to thin snow cover on the glacier is stretching towards a month. There’s only 7cm of snow reported on there at present so it’s not looking promising that it’ll re-open any time soon. It’s a similar picture on the Dachstein Glacier which has 30cm of snow on the glacier which it describes as “wet.” It only had limited cross country skiing open at present.

Snow depth on the year-round snow sports centre at Tux in the Ziller Valley has dropped below a metre for the first time in a long while – it’s at 95cm (just over three feet), but there are still 20km of runs and more than 600m of vertical to enjoy.

Italy’s Val Senales, Cervinia and Passo Stelvio remain open, each with 70-100cm (2.3 – 3.3 feet) of snow. Cervinia, which is in its penultimate week of summer skiing, closing on September 5th, has the best snow after benefitting from the large snowfall that Zermatt received a few weeks ago.

In France cover is patchy at Les 2 Alpes and Tignes, the two open glacier ski areas, both of which close this weekend, although in Tignes’ case, only for three weeks before re-opening for winter 2010-11 in mid-September!

Chile’s Portillo has issued a statement saying, “We are in a spring skiing freeze \ thaw cycle. Off piste skiing cover is variable. The heliskiing is operating as weather permits on corn snow and the snow depth on the Plateau side is 100cm and 50cm on the Juncalillo side.” This seems to be a pattern being repeated at other Chillean resorts, with Chapa Verde’s base depth now down to 50cm (20 inches) at Valle Nevado it’s only 40cm, despite more than 3.7m falling so far this winter. None the less, most of the terrain there remains open.