Season openings, ski pass prices, new lifts and snow from ski resorts across Europe.
A six-day Stubai Skipass, valid on the glacier and in the valley's three other resorts, costs €355 in the 2026/27 main season. A six-day SKI plus CITY Pass costs €386 and covers the same four resorts plus eight more, ski buses, attractions in and around Innsbruck and a swimming pool. The difference is €31 over six days, or just over €5 a day.
If you start refreshing glacier webcams from mid-September and counting the days until your first autumn turns, this piece is for you. The first lift is scheduled to start on 19 September at Alpin Arena Senales in Maso Corto, and for just under a week it will be the only resort in this round-up with a groomed piste. Sölden joins on 25 September, Pitztal and Kaunertal a day later, Hintertux is due to resume skiing at the end of September, and Stubai, Kitzsteinhorn and Mölltaler start in the first ten days of October.
There is a moment on the second section of the Kreuzjochbahn gondola when the forest ends and a rock wall rises behind it, the last thing you would expect in this part of Tyrol. Limestone towers, gullies and spires look a little like a frame from the Dolomites moved a hundred kilometres north. This is the Kalkkögel, and the resort at its foot is called Schlick 2000, the largest ski area in the outer Stubai valley. I went there with the Ski plus City Pass Stubai Innsbruck, and it is one of those cases where the statistics say far less than the view.
Sixteen million euros for a single chairlift at a resort with 23 kilometres of pistes and six lifts. That is the cost of the project due to open on the Glungezer in December, and at first glance the figure looks like a mistake. For comparison, a day pass here costs €50, roughly what you pay in the Beskids on New Year's Eve. And yet the sums add up; you just have to do them differently. Glungezer does not sell kilometres. It sells its distance from Innsbruck and the fact that it is the only mountain in the area where you can ski all the way down to the village without getting into a gondola.
The Madonna di Campiglio ski pass has gone up for the 2026/27 season, but far more gently than in Ischgl or Sölden. This time the Italians have shown restraint, and at first glance that looks like good news for anyone planning a winter in the Brenta Dolomites. The thing is, the most important part of this price list is not the figures in the table. There is one change in it that you will not see until you put the old and new season calendars side by side. I found it while recalculating the new rates line by line, and it is what will decide how much you actually pay. The details are below.
A refund for a Dolomiti Superski ski pass from the interrupted 2019/20 season is still there for the taking. Six years after the lifts closed, and not as some forgotten clause in the terms and conditions: the consortium has just extended the scheme to the 2026/27 season. There is not a single euro of cash in it, but with one of the options we are talking about several hundred euros.
Two identical ski weeks in the Dolomites. The same hotel, the same pistes, the same Sellaronda. The difference in the price of the ski pass alone is €46 per person, and it depends solely on whether you leave on 14 March or a week later. The Dolomiti Superski ski pass for the 2026/27 season now has an official price list, and the most interesting thing in it is the calendar, not the size of the increases.
Up close, the new piste in Jasná looks nothing like it does on the map. I was there on 12 August, filming for a video, and stood on the cleared strip of forest that runs from Luková down to Otupné. Forty metres of width is a figure that means nothing on paper. On the ground it is impressive.
Two weeks ago I explained where the Italian competition authority's case against Dolomiti Superski stood. I said clearly at the time that it was only a proposal, not a decision, so nobody should be rummaging through drawers for old ski pass receipts just yet. I promised to come back to the subject as soon as something happened. It just has. The AGCM has closed the case, and a refund for a Dolomiti Superski ski pass is no longer just a plan. I read the authority's statement in the original and compared it with what was announced in the spring. Below you will find everything I have established: what exactly was decided, who can expect money, how much they will actually get and from when. I have also written to Dolomiti Superski asking for an official statement and for the technical details of the procedure. I will publish the reply separately.
A Ski amadé 2026/27 ski pass for six days of skiing in the peak season, between 19 December 2026 and 26 March 2027, costs €432.50 at the ticket office. Bought online well in advance for the same dates, it can cost from €367.50. The "from €342" price advertised everywhere actually applies only to the pre-season and post-season, that is until 18 December and after 27 March, not to Christmas, the winter school holidays or the rest of the winter. I explain the mechanism behind this difference and give the full price list for both periods later in the article. The name of the association means little to the average reader, but it covers some well-known resorts: Schladming, Gastein, Flachau and twenty-two others. I know all five regions of the association first-hand, and every time I come back to the same conclusion: Ski amadé is not one price list but five different markets operating under a shared name.
€83. That is what a day pass in Ischgl costs, for the first time in its history. Only two seasons ago the €80 mark was seen in the Alps as a psychological barrier, yet the Silvretta Arena clears it without hesitation. The Paznaun valley published its price list for the 2026/27 season unusually early, in midsummer. I went through it carefully and found changes that genuinely affect how you plan a trip. Prices are once again rising faster than inflation, but they are not the biggest surprise here. I have known the Paznaun for years, from Ischgl to See, so alongside the price tables I add a few conclusions from my own trips.
A few months after Livigno hosted the snowboard and freestyle events at the Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics, I expected one thing: price rises. That is what usually happens after a big sporting event. The resort becomes better known, demand grows and prices go up. I checked the official price list for the 2026/2027 season and can say straight away: this time that scenario did not play out. But that does not mean you can buy a ski pass without thinking. The difference between the best and the worst time to buy in Livigno is almost 45 percent, and that makes a real difference to the budget of a week's trip.
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