Stelvio Glacier reopens summer skiing with shorter morning hours

Italy’s Stelvio Glacier resumed lift-served summer skiing on Friday, 4 September, following a three-week closure caused by persistent heat and storms. Poor overnight refreezing had left the operator unable to prepare a suitable morning surface.

SIFAS Passo dello Stelvio has shifted skiing to 6.30am–noon, compared with the usual 7.30am–12.30pm schedule. The earlier start gives skiers access during the coldest part of the morning, while increasing the operating window by 30 minutes.

The official lift-status service lists the Pajer and Cristallo ski lifts as running until noon. The Geister 1 and Geister 2 lifts are also open, while the Passo Stelvio–Trincerone and Trincerone–Livrio cable cars continue until 4pm.

Eight pistes were listed as open when skiing resumed, including the Geister, Pajer and Cristallo terrain. Operations remain subject to daily snow and weather conditions.

Warm nights forced the August closure

Skiing stopped on 15 August after several weeks of difficult weather. SIFAS called the suspension “painful but necessary” and said heat, frequent storms and the absence of a reliable overnight freeze had affected both slope quality and safety.

“These factors make it impossible to guarantee the usual standards of quality and, above all, of safety required for summer skiing,” the operator said in a statement reported by SnowBrains.

Summer glacier operations depend on the snow surface hardening overnight. This gives grooming teams a firm base to work with before daytime temperatures soften the slopes. When temperatures remain high overnight, the skiable window becomes shorter and the surface deteriorates faster.

The cable cars continued carrying visitors to the glacier during the skiing suspension. Cooler temperatures have now made lift-served skiing possible again, although the revised timetable indicates that conditions have not returned to their earlier-season pattern.

Stelvio’s reopening restores the only operating lift-served summer glacier skiing in the European Alps. Tignes ended its 2026 summer season early, while Zermatt, Saas-Fee and Hintertux have all faced interruptions or reduced operations, as covered in our report on this summer’s glacier closures.

The Stelvio area sits between 2,758 metres and 3,450 metres and offers about 20 kilometres of groomed slopes. Its 2026 summer calendar is scheduled to run until 1 November, conditions permitting. The pass road is closed in winter, so the ski area operates outside the normal Alpine season.