Val Thorens, France, celebrating new snow and a New Year...
Where to Ski in January 2025
January is usually the coldest month of the year and a month when almost all ski areas in the northern hemisphere expect to be open - and ideally have all or most of their terrain open too.
That is indeed the case for many of the big-name ski areas in Europe, North America and Asia, after some good autumn snowfalls, but, as always, it's a little more nuanced when you dive into the details.
In Europe, the Northern and Western Alps have had a lot of snowfall and it's also looking pretty good in Eastern Europe and, after a slow start, the Pyrenees. The Southern and Eastern Alps including the Dolomites have had much less snowfall but have still got most of their terrain open.
Scandinavian ski areas are also still catching up after a warm Autumn and open terrain is minimal in Scotland.
Across the Atlantic in North America snow depths are generally good in the west, particularly in the north. But sections of the Rockies, especially around Utah, have been struggling for snowfall and the East Coast is also catching up after an often warm, wet, autumn/fall.
Japan has had a great December and its ski centres are posting the deepest snows in the world as we start the new year.
Europe
Austria
It's a pretty good start to 2025 for Austrian ski areas after a fairly cold and snowy November and December.
Most of the country's big areas such as the Arlberg, Skiwelt and Saalbach-Hinterglemm are 80-90% open.
There's a fine balance though as snow cover isn't that deep and mostly machine-made so we start the year with white ribbons of piste down green valley sides below about 1500m.
Austrian ski areas will be hoping for more cold and snowy weather in January to bolster things, but equally, their long-perfected snowmaking skills should keep everything open barring an unprecedentedly warm month.
France
French ski areas are in excellent shape for the start of January.
Big snowfalls in the week leading up to Christmas deposited up to two metres (6+ feet) of fresh snow on higher slopes giving the country's higher slopes the deepest bases on the continent for the start of 2025.
It also means most centres are close to full operations, including the world's largest ski area, the 3 Valleys around Courchevel, Les Menuires, Meribel and Val Thorens which reports 90% of its runs open.
Italy
Most of Italy's ski regions start January with the majority of their terrain open.
That said snow cover – other than in the far north and west of the country – is fairly marginal after a largely dry autumn. H
The country has become expert in snowmaking so resorts like Val Gardena, posting deepest snow levels of only 50cm, much of it machine-made, have 100% of their 180km of slopes open.
It's not a universal picture; the giant Milky Way (Via Lattea) region on the country's border with France is less than half open.
It's also worth mentioning that the Apennines that run down to southern Italy parallel with Rome had a huge Christmas week snowfall leaving the snow lying 1.5m deep (after a mostly dry winter 23-24 last season).
Switzerland
Most Swiss centres have been operating close to capacity over the Christmas period with some huge snowfalls just before Christmas really giving a positive early-season boost.
Some centres were already fully open but others like Crans Montana had been struggling with limited snow cover but then saw their base depths quadruple with more than 1.5m of snowfall.
It's not a universally positive picture; in the east and south of the country there wasn't much of a snow boost compared to resorts in the north and west and the snow is still less than 50cm thick at some ski areas.
Scandinavia
After all the hype for Scandinavia being the place to be in a warming world, it wasn't really a great autumn 2024 in Scandinavia, with lots of areas seeing rain rather than snowfall and temperatures too warm for much snowmaking either, right up as far north as Lapland.
That said the latter half of December did see some consistently low temperatures and snowfall, heaviest in Western Norway. There's still some way to go though before seasonal averages are reached and the big resorts like Are and Hemsedal have been struggling to open even half their runs.
It's traditionally a cold and dark time of the year, with floodlit trails, so hopefully things will continue to improve through January. The sun is due to reappear above the horizon up at Finland's Levi on the 1st.
Scotland
Four of Scotland's five ski centres managed to open in December, but it has been very limited terrain to date. The country has had its usual ups and downs with low temperatures and some natural snowfall followed by very warm, wet weather washing out much of the natural stuff. It was up to +13C over Christmas.
Consequently, it's all-weather snowmaking systems providing small areas of snow terrain at Cairngorm, the Lecht, Glenshee and Glencoe as we start 2025. A period of cold, snowy weather could change things and allow for a bigger opening of natural runs but there's no clear sign of when/if that'll happen in January.
Nevis Range lacks a working all-weather snowmaking system and has said it won't open until the February school holidays unless there is a good natural snowfall.
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees had a challenging start to December with almost no snow anywhere delaying resorts opening until about a third of the way into the month when there was a heavy snowfall and a rush to start the season. The mountains then had a brief warm spell and further pre-Christmas snow.
The result of all that is that bases are currently in the 50-100cm bracket and most areas, including the giants like Spain's Baqueira Beret and Andorra's Grandvalira, are 70-80% open.
More snowfall and consistently cold temperatures would be welcome through January though.
Eastern Europe
Most Eastern European ski areas are posting fairly good conditions as we start 2025.
Bulgaria's Bansko is a stand-out after some heavy December snowfalls, with about 90% of its terrain open, the snow 1.3m deep up top.
Elsewhere it's more commonly 40-70cm base depths and 50-75% of terrain open at centres across the region.
North America
Canada
It's been a very different start to the season in Eastern and Western Canada with the East struggling with warm, wet weather through November and December, the West being dumped on by the La Nina system which has seen some resorts including Revelstoke post more than four metres of snowfall before the end of December.
The result is that January starts looking great in Alberta and British Columbia with resorts like Sun Peaks 100% open and the continent's largest Whistler Blackcomb 90% of the way there. On the East Coast (Ontario, Quebec etc), although temperatures have been more reliably sub-zero in recent weeks, there's some catching up to do with most centres still only 40-60% open.
USA
It's looking good across much of the US as we start 2025 but here too there are variations.
The Pacific Northwest corner of the country has had the most snow and it's looking good too in states like Montana and Wyoming. Most of Colorado's ski areas have 80-90% of their slopes open despite no really big snowfalls.
The states doing less well and with perhaps only half-a-metre of snow on the ground so far include California and Utah where Heavenly is only half open and America's biggest resort, Park City, only on 20% of its terrain available as we start the new year.
The East Coast has had a difficult start to the season with warm, wet weather in the autumn, but it has turned colder in recent weeks and larger centres like Maine's Sunday River now have most of their terrain open.
Asia
It's been one of the snowiest Decembers of the last decade in Japan with several of the country's ski areas passing a 4m upper slope base depth mark in the final week of December, the most in the world by more than a metre.
So it's looking good for the start of 2025 with most of the country's famous ski areas like Niseko and Nozawa Onsen fully open with plenty of powder.