British adventurer Aaron Rolph has completed the famous Haute Route between Chamonix and Zermatt in just 31 hours. Rolph’s achievement is believed to be the first successful, single push of the most popular Verbier route. Rolph reached the Swiss mountain town of Zermatt after ski touring non-stop for 31 hours from Chamonix covering a distance of 125km (78 miles) and climbing almost 8000m (26,247 feet) in ascent. Upon doing so, he joined a very short list of ski mountaineering elite to complete the iconic ski challenge in a “single push”. The Haute Route is one of the world’s most coveted ski tours. Many experienced off-piste skiers aspire to complete the route over 7 days, staying in mountain huts en route.

A number of ski areas in Europe and North America that wouldn’t normally be open to the latter half of May have announced extended ski seasons for at least another week. Some are crediting good snow conditions for their decisions, others the e4asing of pandemic restrictions where they’re located, some both. Around 50 ski areas remain open this weekend, but for about a third of these, this Sunday will be the last of the season, including three resorts still open in Finland, two of which (Levi & Ruka) have clocked up a seven month season since opening in early October and now have less than five months to wait until the 21-22 season starts for them. Winter Park Among the

Last Updated 10 May 2021 at 17.00 GMT (Updates so far since commenced on 5 May 2020: 649 The web's most comprehensive guide of ski resorts opening around the world during the pandemic. An estimated 50+ Ski Areas Are Currently Open Worldwide in at least 20 Countries on 3 Continents including: Asia: Azerbaijan, China, India, Iran, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey. Europe: Armenia, Austria, Finland, Georgia, Norway, Russia, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine. North America: Canada, USA Ski areas in Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Lebanon, Lithuania, Mongolia, Morocco, Pakistan*, Poland and Portugal wanted to open but governments in their countries or region have deemed it is not virus-safe to do so during the ski season. (*Closed due to business issues not virus). Most ski areas in the

Issued: 5 May 2021 By Patrick "Snowhunter" Thorne European Roundup North American Roundup Asia Roundup Southern Hemisphere WORLD OVERVIEW Åre resort this week Moving into May, the six months of debate over whether or not thousands of ski areas can operate in the Northern Hemisphere (due to different pandemic restrictions in different countries) begins to seem less important as more than 99% of ski areas have now closed anyway as a result of the natural end to the season. Indeed, May is normally one of the quietest periods in the global ski year anyway as the Northern Hemisphere’s season winds down but the Southern Hemisphere’s has not yet started and 2021 is looking no different.  Actually, there may be just slightly

Polish ski mountaineer Andrzej Bargiel has become the first man to summit Yawash Sar II (6,178m  / 20,269 ft) in the Karakoram range in Pakistan. He is then reported to have skied down to the mountain’s base. Andrzej Bargiel, who was the first man top successfully summit and ski down the world’s second highest peak, K2, in 2018, climbed with Yendrek Baranowski setting off from Base Camp before camping at 5,100m, then departing for the top at 4am. Images from Andrzej Bargiel Instagram The duo are reported to have made the ascent sooner than originally planned as Pakistan intends to enforce a tourism travel shuts down on May 8 to limit COVID spread during the end-of-Ramadan holidays. Laila Peak Before