TL;DR
Italy's Stelvio Glacier has pulled the plug on summer skiing from August 15. It was the last lift-served ski option left standing in continental Europe, and now there's none. Operator SIFAS pointed to persistent heat, storms, and a snowpack that simply wasn't refreezing overnight anymore. The cable car keeps running. Whether skiing comes back later this summer depends on the weather turning - and right now, nobody's promising anything.
Italy's Stelvio Glacier has stopped running lifts for skiing, and there's now nowhere left in continental Europe to ski outdoors.
Operator SIFAS made the call on August 14, suspending skiing from the 15th until further notice. The decision came down to three months of heat that simply hasn't let up, storms rolling through more often than usual, and a glacier that stopped refreezing overnight. SIFAS didn't sugarcoat it, calling the closure "painful but necessary."
"These factors make it impossible to guarantee the usual standards of quality and, above all, of safety required for summer skiing," the operator said.
🏔️ It hurts to see the Stelvio Glacier like this.
The last one standing
Stelvio had outlasted every other Alpine summer ski area this year. Zermatt shut its Theodul Glacier operation in early August. Saas-Fee went a few days later. Hintertux in Austria has taken to introducing its own mid-summer breaks these last few seasons, and Tignes in France called time on its 2026 season early once the snow gave out. Stelvio was the holdout - right up until it wasn't.
