UK Outdoor Snow News

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This weekend saw the first ever Big Spring Clean organised by the Ski Club of Great Britain take place in two of the Scottish ski areas where over 100 skiers and mountain enthusiasts came and picked up more than 70 bags of litter following the end of the winter season.

At Cairngorm Mountain around 40 people took part in the event picking up over 40 bags of litter. There were similar numbers in Nevis Range with around 60 people picking up 35 bags of rubbish. The litter picked up ranged from plastic bottles and drinks cans to gloves and scarves dropped during the ski season plus some more obscure items including a pair of 1970’s skis, a traffic cone and a clock. Hundreds of cigarette butts were also collected from under chairlifts and from busy tourist areas in the resorts.

Despite significant amounts of litter being cleared, there was a positive feel in both resorts with many of those taking part feeling that the mountains were already a lot cleaner than they had expected. Sally Thorne from Inverness who participated in the litter pick in Nevis Range was surprised: “Although we have picked two bags of dropped litter we are actually impressed by how little rubbish there was, even under the ski lifts. Perhaps British skiers are some of the cleanest in the world.”

Lizzie Crookenden from the Ski Club said of the event: “With such a good turnout at both resorts we have really helped make a difference to the amount of litter left on the mountain following the ski season. By putting on this event we have also made locals and tourists aware of the fact that litter is an issue in such delicate environments and we have hopefully made them think twice about dropping litter in the future.”

Bob Kinnaird, Chief Executive of Cairngorm Mountain was delighted with the event and said: “People don’t appreciate how much litter gets dropped during the ski season and gets buried under the snow. It’s only now there is the opportunity to clean the mountain up. We are really grateful to all the volunteers who have turned up to come and help tidy the site up. It is important we keep this mountain clean because it is so precious and we want to ensure we can ski here in years to come.”

The Big Spring Clean is the next step in the Ski Club of Great Britain’s Respect the Mountain Campaign www.respectthemountain.com), and as well as helping the sustainability of the mountains and the wildlife, the event has helped raise awareness about responsible tourism and send a message to skiers, and mountain users about the seriousness of dropping litter.

For more information on the 'Big Spring Clean' visit www.skiclub.co.uk or for more information on the Respect the Mountain Campaign visit www.respectthemountain.com

The company than runs CairnGorm mountain ski area, which celebrated its most successful season in terms of snow cover consistency and visitor numbers for seven years when it finished its ski season earlier this month, is to be taken over by a public agency.

CairnGorm Mountain Ltd is believed to have debts of £6m and the move by Highlands and Islands Enterprise to take over operation of the facility is intended to secure the continued operation of the £20m funicular railway, which opened in 2001, largely funded by public money. Earlier this month debts owed by the ski area of £3m to local government bodies and government agencies were written off. Discussions over a further £3m owed to the bank are ongoing.

A spokeswoman for Highlands and Islands Enterprise told local media,

"In the face of a declining domestic ski market, CairnGorm Mountain Ltd has been hampered from pursuing plans to diversify its operations because of debt incurred through its investment in the railway.”

Bob Kinnaird, chief executive of CML commented,

"We will be working closely with HIE management over the next few months, adapting the facility so it continues to secure interest from the wider market it serves in addition to winter sports."

CairnGorm is the latest of the five Scottish ski areas to experience financial difficulties following the sale from administration of Glenshee and Glencoe ski areas in 2006.

Cairngorm Mountain has been taken over by the Highlands and Islands Enterprise development agency. For the meantime nothing will change, but once the various areas of business go out to tender it could really shake things up.

Here's more detail on the SNO!zone Scotland Park Session happening at Kelvingrove Park in Glasgow on Saturday 24th May.

Scotland’s Ski Season Continues In to May as Temperatures Hit 21°C.

CairnGorm Mountain celebrated its sixth month of skiing as it staged a successful ‘SnowFest’ over the Bank Holiday weekend.

Over 400 skiers and boarders (and double that many spectators) arrived to enjoy the snow as temperatures in Northern Scotland suddenly shot up to around 21°C (70°F) on the nearby West Coast.

Temperatures on Cairngorm peaked at about half that, but the local ski patrol reported,

“The snow is melting fast now and we have to begin clearing the slopes of all our signs, nets , poles and markers and get them ready for next year. ”

However, the season may not yet be over, there is still a 400m vertical available and the ski area is reporting that although closed until Friday it will review conditions on Saturday to decide whether or not to open this weekend. Scotland’s four other ski areas have definitely closed for the season.

Cairngorm Mountain above Aviemore in Scotland expects to open this May bank holiday weekend to clock up five months of continual operations since the area opened for the winter on December 1st last year.

Less than ten days after achieving its winter season target of 51,000 skiers, CairnGorm Mountain broke its revised target of 60,000 skiers and management a week ago when, on Tuesday morning (April 22nd), Jo Bennett of Milnathort, Perth and Kinross, a regular skier at Scotland’s resorts, became this year’s 60,000th snowsports visitor to CairnGorm this winter. Jo, a pharmacist has been snowboarding for 10 years and started her skiing career in Cervinia, Italy. It’s four years since she skied at CairnGorm Mountain, but with conditions so good at CairnGorm she couldn’t resist a final day out on her board. With quality conditions still evident from the mid-mountain to the summit, CairnGorm is now hoping to attract a further 2-3000 winter sports enthusiasts before, eventually, it closes for what it describes as having been, “An unexpectedly good season for Scottish skiing.”

Snow has fallen regularly on the mountain for the past week, the corries and the gullies have been filled with fresh powder snow and the pistes across the mountain have been groomed to provide skiing and snowboarding conditions of a quality that has not been enjoyed at CairnGorm Mountain for several years. And certainly of a quality that has not been available in April for a long, long time.

Said Tania Alliod, CML’s Marketing Manager:

“The combinations of quality snow conditions, blue sky and sunshine last weekend made CairnGorm look its best and more than 3,000 skiers took advantage of what were Alpine-like conditions but with a distinctive Scottish flavour. On top of our regular season ticket holders, we welcomed 1,300 day skiers on Saturday with a similar number on Sunday, making it not only the busiest weekend for this season but also the busiest April weekend since the funicular opened. It is certainly encouraging but we mustn’t forget that last year, because of the poorest snow conditions that we have ever experienced, we had our worse year ever. ”

“Most of our visitors come from Scotland and the north of England and they are making use of the quality conditions on their doorstep. “We remain confident that we could be offering skiing into May and have already made tentative plans for a Snow Festival at CairnGorm during the Bank Holiday weekend over 2nd to 5th May. That certainly has to be good news for the entire area”

Of the other four Scottish areas, Glenshee, the Lecht and Glencoe have closed for the season. Nevis Range has snow cover but decided not top open this week or skiing due to lack of business last week, it is considering opening for the coming Bank Holiday weekend subject to conditions. Cairngorm remains open daily with a 440m vertical and had fresh snow yesterday (Tuesday 29th April).

It’s a fact that one cigarette butt pollutes upwards of 1 cubic metre of water, a coke can takes over 200 years to decompose and even orange peel will not disappear in less than a year. All these items, and many more are found on ski slopes across the world.

The Ski Club of Great Britain is encouraging mountain users in Scotland to do their bit for the environment by picking up litter dropped during the ski season in ‘The Big Spring Clean’ being organised by the Ski Club at two different ski areas, Cairngorm Mountain and Nevis Range on Sunday 1st June 2008.

The 'Big Spring Clean', the next step in the Ski Club’s Respect the Mountain campaign (www.respectthemountain.com), is an opportunity for people to have a fun day out in the mountains whilst contributing to the well-being of the land by picking up as much litter as possible.

The event, as well as helping the sustainability of the mountains and the wildlife, aims to raise awareness about responsible tourism and send a message to skiers, hillwalkers and all mountain users about the seriousness of dropping litter. Similar projects run in the French Alps have seen shocking results with twenty tons of rubbish being picked up by volunteers in forty-one resorts in 2007.

Caroline Stuart Taylor, Chief Executive of the Ski Club explained the reason behind event: “Since the launch of our Respect the Mountain campaign in 2004 the Ski Club has been proactive in educating and raising awareness about what people can do to try and safeguard mountain environments. The 'Big Spring Clean' will help to raise awareness in our own country, promoting sustainability in the Scottish resorts and encourage mountain users to do their bit to help preserve their mountains.”

The 'Big Spring Clean' is taking place at Nevis Range and Cairngorm Mountain on Sunday 1st June between 11am-4pm. Meeting points are at the bottom of the gondola at Nevis Range and the Ranger Base, Coire Cas at Cairngorm. Volunteers will be given bin bags, gloves and litter pickers at the meeting points. There will also be a prize for the person picking up the most litter plus free tea and cake for all volunteers.

For more information on the 'Big Spring Clean' visit www.skiclub.co.uk or for more information on the Respect the Mountain Campaign visit www.respectthemountain.com

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.

If there was any doubt over the introductory words on the SCUK homepage, check out this article and shots from Nevis yesterday.

It could be anywhere in the Alps when conditions are like this. Throw in some good riders (Ric Barrow, Colum Mytton, Andy Laird, Mark Watson, Pikey Dan) for a Document photoshoot and the real scale of the place shines through.

A pet dog is turning heads on the snow-covered slopes of Glenshee - by using a ski-lift.

The Herald reports on the downturn of visitors to the Scottish slopes.

Scotland just keeps on getting better and better, with Nevis Range giving ride anywhere conditions yesterday. The summit runs have finally filled in without being scoured by the wind, allowing work to start on the park.

On a sour note it looks like someone has been stealing snow fences from Nevis Range… as hard as we tried we couldn't find any on some of the runs. Either the locals have been up the hill looking for fire wood… or they're buried beneath several foot of snow! I'll let you decide.

First Tracks on Linnhe


Drifts


Summit Button Hut


Summit Button


Sidewinder


Kicker


Hoose T-Bar


Chris H


Allt Sncheda Gully


Allt Sncheda


Powder Slash


[Words and pictures from Steve McKenna]

Just to prove Nevis wasn't a fluke, here's a shot from the top of the Cairnwell T-Bar from Glenshee on 12th January 2008.

Scotland is expecting more snow mid-week, so fingers crossed for another great weekend.

[Photo by Jamie Johnston for www.highland-instinct.co.uk]

Steve McKenna has just about recovered from an epic day at Nevis Range on Saturday. Loads of people talk about the Back Corries like it's some kind of myth. "Theres never enough snow", "You'll have to hike for hours to get out", etc, etc. Well not this weekend!

They're in fantastic condition considering it's only the 2nd weekend of the season, with plenty of powder stashes and lines waiting to be hit. Ski Patrol haven't knocked off any cornices off yet, so it's as natural as it gets.

Given the snow and the press coverage in the last week, this could be a season to remember.

Back Corries


Graham McGrath, Chancers


James, Back Corrie


Back Corries, Chancer


Top Station


Chris H, Pinball Alley


Chancers, Cornice


Top Station and Carpark


Why we love 'em!

[From Steve McKenna (SCUK:StevieMcK)]

Thanks to the recent heavy snowfalls that have brought great conditions to Scotland’s ski slopes, the famous Kiltarlity Ice Hotel in the Scottish Highlands has opened for winter 2007-8. Rebuilt every year since 1989, the Ice Hotel is believed to be the world’s oldest.

“We get a special kind of snow here in Kiltarlity that’s ideal for building ice hotels,” said master builder Alexander Thorne (12). “We are hoping to copyright ‘the wettest snow on Earth’ as our trademark.”

As in previous years the hotel has been designed as a multi-function space, designed for open plan al fresco living with designers working to maximise the natural ambient light of the Highland winter.

Traditional building techniques passed down through the generations for thousands of years are used in construction.

“I spend a lot of time studying Inuit culture on the Discovery Channel in order to perfect my design,” said Alexander, “…although mostly I like the polar bear documentaries.”

Climate change has been an increasing concern for the ice hotel’s designers, and Assistant Master Architect Robert Thorne (6) agrees that global warming is a worry.

“It used to be that we would build the ice hotel and it would last until the next day,” he said, “but now it tends to melt within 24 hours.”

The Kiltarlity Ice Hotel opened for the season today, and is expected to close for the season tomorrow.

[From Patrick Thorne of Snow24.com]

Nice one Patrick!

After healthy snowfalls across Scotland’s ski areas last week, the five centres are currently storm bound as fresh heavy snow has blocked access roads. Only The Lecht has managed to open its sheltered nursery area to skiers arriving from the Tomintoul side, with the Strathdon access road closed by high winds and drifting snow. Cairngorm is currently reporting gusts of up to 140mph and a windchill factor of -23°C.

The extreme conditions are expected to continue on Thursday but with one of the best early January weekends for several years in prospect for skiers and boarders from Friday onwards as a result of the falls.

ski.visitscotland.com/conditions
www.snowboardclub.co.uk/weather

We could shrink them down a bit, but when the young Steve McKenna sends some shots of real UK snow this good, it seems such a shame.

Cairnwell Panorama


Cairnwell Tow


Lip Slash


Lip Slash


Meoll Odhar Panorama


Sunnyside


Tiger Kicker


Tiger Kicker


Tiger Kicker


Tiger_kicker

Better late than never, but we thought we'd pass this on.

An avalanche warning has been issued for a British mountain. Walkers are being urged to avoid Helvellyn in the Lake District because of dire weather conditions.

It is England's third highest peak and according to some experts has not been in such a dangerous state for many years.

It currently has a wind chill factor of nearly minus sixteen degrees Celsius, solid ice and up to half a metre of snow on it.

A message from SCUK's roving Scottish reporter, Steve McKenna:

Just a quickie to let you know its been dumping down over the Cairngorms for the last 48hrs. Glenshee and the Lecht are both gearing up for their first day of the season tomorrow (if they can get the roads opened again in the morning)

Hopefully Nevis and Glencoe will catch enough overnight to open soon, especially with more snow forecast next week.

I'm planning on heading up on Sunday, but with all that fresh powder on offer I don't know how many photos I'll be taking (plus the overhead forecast ain't that great). IN the meantime the Scottish Avalanche Information Service blog have some photos from the last 2 days at Glenshee on saisscairngorms.blogspot.com

Well after the bad news that Glencoe has gone in to liquidation, here's a little good news...

Glencoe have got a new webcam up and running, sitting on the ski partol hut at the main basin tows, looking down over the lower half of the mountain.

It looks like they're having some technical issues with it this morning. However, the lower camera is working and it looks like there is still enough snow that could freeze into a decent base.

Poor snow falls have hit Scotland's ski resorts in recent years Scotland's oldest ski centre has gone into liquidation.

It is understood a new buyer is being sought for Glencoe Mountain Resort, which took over the White Corries area when it went into receivership.

Along with Scotland's other ski centres, Glencoe has suffered from a lack of consistent seasons because of poor snow falls.

The rival Nevis Range's gondola and CairnGorm Mountain's funicular railway have allowed them to run in summer.

[From BBC Scotland]

More from The Scotsman.

Having heard reports of a serious dump over the Cairngorms last night, I hopped in the car this morning and made for the hills! As I had heard it was snowing as low as the village of Aviemore last night, I chose the shorter drive to Glenshee hoping to get lucky.

On arrival at Glenshee it was evident that there had not been much low level snowfall, cursed, and started to hike towards Glas Maol which was looking promising. Legs burning, I gave up on the final ascent midway and headed for some nice drifted powder with my board. Was good to get some turns in at least and I had another short run off Meall Odhar on the way back to the car park avoiding rocks and chopping heather and grass along the way! There looked to be a lot more snow in the Cairngorm direction and, unsurprisingly I had recieved a capture from the Cairngorm daylodge webcam in my email on my return home where no doubt there had been dozens of people hiking up to make the best of a pre-season blue sky powder day.

More snow is forecast next week so no doubt I'll have another journey out before heading off to Meribel!

[Words and pictures from Jamie Gunn]

Here's a couple of shots from Jamie Gunn from Aviemore yesterday.

There's an interesting thread running in the SCUK Forum about the future of the Scottish resorts and premature predictions of doom in the media.

Jamie Gunn up in Aviemore sent us some shots of the September snow!

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