Best spring ski resorts 2027 (April and May)

How we picked

Spring skiing is a different sport: warm mornings, soft afternoons, and the kind of long lunches that make you forget winter. The shortlist is short because most resorts close in April. Saas-Fee in the Swiss Valais sits at 1800m with the Allalin glacier reaching 3500m and reliably stays open into May. Zermatt pushes even further, with year-round skiing on the Matterhorn Glacier Paradise and the Italian-side Cervinia link doubling the terrain. In France, Tignes opens its Grande Motte glacier into May while Val Thorens, the highest village in Europe at 2300m, keeps the entire 600 kilometre Three Valleys running until early May in most years. In the southern hemisphere, Mt Hutt in New Zealand opens in June for those who want winter all year. North America stretches the season too: Whistler Blackcomb glacier camp runs into July, Mammoth Mountain in California is famous for skiing through Memorial Day, and the Cottonwood Canyons pairing of Alta and Snowbird routinely posts April storms that drop a metre overnight. For the glacier-only specialists, Stubai, Hintertux, Pitztal and Sölden Rettenbach in Austria form a quartet that never closes, with Hintertux operating 365 days a year. These are the resorts engineered for sunshine season.