Unusual Snowfall in Europe's City Suburbs Lead Indoor Skiers to Ski Outdoors

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World Snow Resort News--February 12, 2009--Recent snow in urban areas has led to ski instructors working indoors year-round in the growing number of indoor snow centers in Europe to come outdoors to see the recent snowfall in parking lots and ride them as well.

Britian's SNOzone! staff enjoy their lunch break from indoor snow.

Back on Europe's conventional ski slopes, snowfalls have been continuing in France throughout the past week with accumulations of up to 44 inches over the past seven days and both the Northern Alps and the Pyrenees are doing well. February 8 was a particularly snowy day across the country with www.skiinfo.com issuing 30 powder alarms, particularly in The PyrÃ©nÃ©es and North Alps.

Val d'Allos 1800 la Foux currently claims the greatest snow depth in France with 12 feet lying on the upper slopes. Gilles Gravier, manager of the local tourist office there told www.skiinfo.com,

"We have not seen a 142 inches of snow depth since the winter of 1975. On February 6 alone we received another 3 feet of snow. These big snowfalls require a lot of work clearing the snow and since January we have spent 120,000 Euros ($153,821) just on snow clearing at the resort. This quantity of snow means the avalanche risk off-piste is very high at level 4 on a scale of up to 5."

In Switzerland more than three feet of fresh snow fell in St.Moritz and Zermatt and Saas Fee in the past week. Zermatt is by far the snowiest place in Europe, the mountain top lies buried under more than 23 feet of snow. Andermatt has reached the 13-foot mark.

As a result, the risk of avalanches is high and The WSL Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research in Davos says the danger for the whole Swiss Alps area is considerable (level 3). They expect more snow in the north and west of the country on February 12. In Austria many leading resorts received fresh snow over the past seven days and eleven resorts now have snow bases of at least eight feet. SÃ¶lden has received 16 inches in the past seven days with Seefeld adding nine inches and Kaprun - Kitzsteinhorn eight inches.

Dozens of resorts in Germany have had 12 inches or more of fresh snow in the past week. Nebelhorn received 112 inches and Kleinwalsertal - Fellhorn eight inches. The Zuspitzplatt ayt Garmisch has the most snow in the country with nearly 8 feet.