J2Ski's Where to Ski in March 2024
J2Ski's Where to Ski in March 2024
Published : 01-Mar-2024 06:15
Winter has piled snow into Europe and North America this week, with more expected, to setup March very nicely for some great skiing this Spring.
Palisades Tahoe, California will have Alpine closed today (1st March) due to abundant snow!
Where to Ski in March 2024
March marks the start of springtime, first by the meteorological measure of the seasons on the 1st, then the astronomical measure on the 20th. It usually marks the final full month of the ski season for most ski areas, some lower lying ones not making it to the end of the month, other higher or more northerly ones continuing right through April too.
This year (as last) springtime is arriving with more of a wintery feel in the Alps than we had for much of actual winter.
The final week of February brought colder temperatures and the biggest snowfalls of 2024 to date. But we can still expect more freeze-thaw conditions through the month to increasingly high altitudes.
Elsewhere in the skiing world, Scandinavia is looking good for March skiing in 2024 having been one of the few places to report a consistently cold and snowy season all winter. The Pyrenees, by contrast, are continuing to battle a warm and dry one. Eastern Europe has decent snow up high and Scotland's centres are, as usual, on a knife edge, with little open as we start the month but with the potential to quickly open much more if things go the right way.
Most North American areas begin the month in the best shape they've been all season after great February snowfalls for all but the Northwest corner of the continent which continues to struggle with warm and dry weather.
Europe
Austria
Austria's ski areas got a big boost in the final week of February with heavy snowfall down to low levels.
This had the twin benefits of greatly improving the 'tired' state of the snow piled up on valley runs, and providing a great powder boost to high altitude terrain up on the country's glaciers, four of which are now reporting the snow lying more than 3 metres/10 feet deep as we start March.
In fact some of Austria's big, but relatively low altitude ski areas like the Skiwelt, have March as the last month of their season, due to shut down the slopes on 1st April, so its extra good news that they've had a boost.
France
French resorts have been posting the world's deepest snowpacks all winter and although the numbers stalled for much of January and February as the snowfalls paused and temperatures rose, the final week of February saw the biggest falls of 2024 so far, bolstering cover by up to a metre ahead of the spring ski period.
So French resorts start March in great shape, at least with the proviso you book an area with plenty of terrain above 1800m altitude.
Although there was snow down to the valley floor over the last weekend of February, the issue of warm temperatures on lower slopes hasn't gone away and those falls didn't change things for more than a few days. In any case this is March so snowlines are rising even in a normal season, whatever one of those is.
Italy
Like the rest of the Alps, Italy saw its biggest snowfalls of 2024 in the last week of February, with resorts here too reporting up to a metre of snowfall through the last six days of the month.
The snowfall was heaviest in the northwest of the country, but there's been significant snowfall in the Dolomites too.
As all of Italy's bigger, northern areas were fully open already, more or less, the new snow has simply secured the slopes for March skiing and beyond.
Of course, the usual rule of the best spring snow being on higher terrain applies as every March, along with the likelihood that freeze-thaw conditions will increasingly be the norm to ever higher elevations as the month progresses.
Switzerland
Swiss slopes also saw some big snowfalls at the end of February, setting the country's ski areas up well for March skiing.
Davos, St Moritz and the Aletsch Arena were among the centres posting cumulative totals of up to a metre in the final 7 days of February, with some Swiss centres getting around a metre.
Laax has the country's deepest snow at 3.8 metres while Verbier and the 4 Valleys start the month with almost every kilometre of their 410km of slopes open. So all in all things are looking good and almost all Swiss resorts plan to stay open well into April and in a few cases (Murren, Zermatt etc) into May.
Pyrenees
It has been one of the worst ever seasons in the Pyrenees, unfortunately, with warm temperatures the norm all winter, plenty of sunshine and not much snowfall. December and January were the warmest on record in the region.
But the final week of February has seen a huge snowfall with some centres posting over a metre - more snowfall than they'd seen through the previous three months combined, meaning they start March with plenty of powder and almost all their terrain open for the first time this season.
Scandinavia
Scandinavia has always come into its own in the springtime and 2024 is looking like it could be more true than ever after Finland, Norway and Sweden saw some great snowfalls and continuing cold weather through February to start the month in excellent shape.
Europe's most northerly ski area, Riksgransen, in the Swedish Arctic circle, opened for its 2024 season at the end of last month, and even with daylight hours now increasing, it's still hard to believe lucky skiers and boarders will be sliding under the midnight sun there in just over two months' time.
Eastern Europe
Ski areas across eastern Europe have been battling warm temperatures all winter, managing to build bases of about a metre on their higher runs – the bigger centres at least, but not able to maintain much cover at lower levels.
So it looks like it will be sunny spring skiing in Bulgaria and Romania, perhaps cooler in the Czech and Slovak Republic.
As we start the month, Slovakia's Jasana and Bulgaria's Bansko, the two biggest in the region, are both about 80% open.
Scotland
Scottish centres have not really fully launched their 23-24 seasons as yet and whether there will be a big snowfall that allows them to open more terrain in March remains to be seen.
Unfortunately though, much of the season it has been just beginner areas, maintained by all-weather snowmaking systems, that have been able to open, although there have been periods when Glencoe, Glenshee and Cairngorm have been able to open 25-50% of their terrain during rare cold, calm, snowy periods.
North America
Canada
Canada has not had a season to remember so far, not for the right reasons anyway. To be fair it has not been that bad on the inland eastern half of British Columbia, nor in Alberta, where most centres are 80-100% open, its western BC on the Pacific coast that continues to struggle with warm weather and not much snowfall leaving smaller, lower areas either completely closed or with just a fraction of their slopes open.
March isn't looking like it'll be much better at this point.
On the east conditions are about the best they've been after a cold February, with most areas almost fully open.
USA
US ski areas are posting their best conditions of the 23-24 season so far as we start March, with resorts in the Rockies and in California in the west having posted up to 10 feet of snowfall in February building bases to 3 metres or more and leaving every slope open.
The only real exception is the Pacific Northwest corner where there's not much snow and not a lot open after temperatures have stayed warm and what precipitation there's been has often been warm all season long.
There is a huge snow storm currently moving in right along the Pacific coast that may bring over 3 metre (ten feet) snow totals by 3rd March in places.
On the East Coast it's been a second winter of limited snowfalls and spells of warm highs causing fast thaws or bringing rain to the snow every few weeks. So bases aren't great as we start the month.
That said, February was the coldest and snowiest month of the season so far here too so most ski areas are close to fully open, but we may see some struggle to make the end of the month unless there is an unexpected temperature drop.
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