Scottish Ski Resort Boss “Increasingly Optimistic” That Season Will Extend In To May.

CairnGorm Mountain chief executive Bob Kinnaird has told the BBC that snow conditions for the season had been of a high quality. "We are becoming increasingly optimistic that we could be offering skiing on Cairngorm into May." He said.

The resort, one of the largest of five in Scotland, hit its annual skier visit target of 51,000 last weekend. The tally is in line with the average over the past five seasons when the ski area’s totals have varied between 38,553 (last winter – when little snow arrived before March and almost all visits were made between March and May) and 58,500 in the winter of 2003-4.

This season has seen much more consistent snowfall right through the season, although along with it the usual challenges of extreme weather conditions on some days, along with perfect still, blue sky powder days on others that are the two normal extremes of Scottish skiing.

Another month of skiing could see Cairngorm pass the 2003-4 total and post their best skier visit results since 2001-2 when more than 80,000 skiers visited.

The season before and through most winters in previous decades it was more than 100,000, but today Cairngorm and several of the other Scottish ski areas have greatly increased their summer visitation.

The four other Scottish ski areas are all also reporting business well up this year.