Resort lift and piste notices
Which lifts are turning, which pistes are open, and whether night skiing is running. An "open" resort can still be a single lower run.
Our adventures / Skiing / Season board / Storm watch
The storm watch.
A snowstorm is not automatically bad news on a ski trip, and a clear blue sky is not automatically good. Wind closes upper lifts, visibility stops guiding, and a winter road can close for a day. Here is how we hold a journey together when the mountain says no.
Explore the guide ↓All five snow regions · the operating rules
- The variables
- Wind, snow, visibility
- The plan
- A spare day, held
- The check
- Each evening, on the ground
- The rule
- No forcing a poor day
What actually stops a ski day.
Travellers tend to imagine a winter disruption as too much snow. In practice the more common causes are wind, visibility and road access. High wind shuts upper lifts even when the pistes below are in perfect condition. Flat light and falling snow make unfamiliar off-piste terrain a poor decision regardless of how good the surface is. And in the Altai, a long winter road between resorts can be closed by drifting while the resort at either end is open and sunny. Each of these has a different answer, which is why a journey needs more than one contingency.
Our approach is structural rather than heroic. Itineraries hold a spare day or a flexible mountain order; where a plan depends on a single morning — a rime dawn on the Songhua River, a first day at a particular resort — we hold a second morning when the schedule allows. The guide and driver read the resort notice, the road report and the next-day forecast together each evening, and the following day is set from that, not from the printed plan. Nothing on this page is a promise that a particular lift will run.
The other half of the rule is a willingness to stop. A private journey has no group timetable to protect, and the most valuable decision on a bad-weather day is often to use the indoor one: a hot spring in the volcano country, a city day in Harbin, a museum and a long lunch, an indoor snow session near a southern gateway. The aim is a good week, not a full lift-ticket count.
What we read each evening.
In the order that changes decisions.
Wind and visibility outlook
The exposed upper terrain at Jikepulin and Koktokay is wind-sensitive; a calm valley forecast can hide a closed summit.
Winter road and transfer reports
Drivers coming off the road are the most current source. A closed road changes the resort order, not the whole journey.
Event, holiday and maintenance calendars
Competition weeks, holiday hours and scheduled lift maintenance close terrain for reasons that have nothing to do with a storm.
Four disruptions, four answers.
The usual re-sequencing moves.
Upper lifts closed by wind
Move down and later — Ski the sheltered lower pistes, shorten the day, and hold the upper terrain for the following morning. In Jilin the sheltered bowls are the natural fallback. Read more →
Heavy snowfall and poor visibility
Stay in bounds — Marked pistes and a guide who knows the mountain, short blocks with warm interiors between them. This is exactly when off-piste ambitions are set aside. Read more →
A closed winter road
Re-order the resorts — The Altai week is built as a loop so that a one-day road closure changes which hill is skied when, rather than cancelling a night in Hemu. Read more →
Extreme cold
Shorten the outdoor blocks — Harbin in January can run roughly −15 to −30°C. The kit list, the warm interior and a short outdoor window are the plan, not an admission of defeat. Read more →
How the itineraries hold a spare day.
Built in before anything goes wrong.
A flexible mountain order
The three Altai resorts are sequenced by conditions on the ground. The printed day-by-day is an outline, and the guide is authorised to change it.
A second dawn where it matters
Rime on the Songhua is a weather phenomenon, not a show. Two mornings are held where the schedule allows, so one clear-out does not cost the whole experience. Read more →
Weather-independent halves
Every winter journey has content that works in bad weather: old towns, hot springs, village evenings, food, museums. Those are real days, not filler.
A clear line on safety
Beyond the marked runs, a qualified local guide and transceiver, shovel and probe are not optional, and no itinerary is rewritten to get around that rule. Read more →
Plan for the week, not the day.
Tell us your dates and how much skiing matters relative to the rest of the trip. We will build a sequence with real alternatives in it, and confirm the current resort status before anything is fixed.
Start my journey brief ↗