Industry News
Passo Stelvio (Stilfserjoch) in Italy picked up fresh snowfall overnight, a welcome sight for the Italian glacier that stands alone right now as the only lift-served summer ski area still operating anywhere in the Alps. However, Stelvio’s season has been anything but smooth. The glacier suspended skiing in mid-August after a stretch of persistent heat, insufficient overnight refreezing, and repeated storms made the snowpack unsafe — a closure that briefly left the entire Alps without a single operating outdoor glacier ski area for the first time in roughly 60 years of lift-served summer skiing. Stelvio reopened on September 4 once temperatures finally dropped enough to let the surface stabilize, running on a shortened schedule to protect the glacier during the still-warm afternoons.
For now, Stelvio remains genuinely alone. Switzerland’s Zermatt and Saas-Fee are both still shut following their own summer heat closures, with neither resort having announced a firm reopening date. Austria’s Hintertux, which built much of its identity around 365-days-a-year skiing, has gone even further this year — its lifts stopped spinning for skiing back in July, with a return not expected until late September. Meanwhile in Scandinavia, Norway’s Juvass Glacier ski area Galdhøpiggen also remains closed but is rumored to reopen soon.
- Related: Saas-Fee, Switzerland, Suspends Summer Skiing, Leaving Only One Glacier Ski Area Open in Europe
Stelvio is currently scheduled to run through November 1, though resort operators continue to stress that hours and operations will keep being assessed daily based on conditions through the rest of September and October. For the athletes that rely on glacier skiing it will be crowded in Europe for a few more weeks before the other glacier ski areas resume operations.
Stelvio is one of the world’s few summer-only ski areas. In winter, the pass road by the same name is closed due to snowfall, making access impossible. Stelvio is located at the Swiss-Italian border and offers skiing from 9,049 feet (2,758 meters) to 11,319 feet (3,450 meters) and spanning over 12.4 miles (20 kilometers) of groomed slopes. The resort is popular with international ski racing teams and is usually the summer base for the Italian national ski team. This week, national athletes from the Swedish team have been spotted at the glacier ski area.
