I take it you want the full names of all the people involved in the information gathering for Scottish snow depths?



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 17.14hrs Tue 11 Jun 13 by Pippin.

GROOAANN !!! Another dog required for walkies !

For information on 9th June 2013 at the following measuring locations at Glencoe:

Happy Valley: 0cm
Main Basin: 274cm

Would equate to the two location average used over the season on the WH Glencoe Report page as 137cm.

So What? Firstly it shows that snow depths are pretty meaningless as a useful reporting tool in a maritime climate where you ski primarily on drifted snow.

Secondly that the ski depths reported by the SCGB for Scotland have historically throughout nearly the whole period the SCGB have been providing web reports bore little connection with reality on the mountains. So where were the numbers coming from seems a pretty fair question to me. One that the SCGB have been unwilling or unable to answer over a period of 11 years.

Worth noting that the historical snow depths for the Scottish Areas have been removed... it only shows this season and depths take a massive jump in one go mid February when serious questions were asked of the SCGB reports by Club Members and the Scottish Ski Areas. Scottish Areas never showed up on the deepest base league table even when the numbers would have put Glencoe near the top.

SCGB Wrote:


Not the case, reports are normally updated only Monday to Friday during office hours.



Accurate? This thread details numerous occasions where the SCGB reports wrongly showed Scottish Areas as being closed - when on a Friday this error would persist all weekend until well into Monday. Reports are not normally updated at weekends so they most certainly are not the most up to date... Ski Areas update their own reports several times a day (more than 10 updates in a day is not unknown from a Scottish perspective) and the General Situation overview here on Winterhighland is updated every evening during the season.

Sorry but I have sat opposite a Ski Club rep in resort at lunch time and listened to them phone in a snow report complete with snow depths. Are you telling me that this did not happen?

I have also personally watched a different Ski Club rep take snow depth measurements. Are you telling me this also did not happen and that I imagined the whole episode?

This is all this century. Consequently it is utterly impossible for me to be completely wrong. If you want I can go look up the dates and resorts for good measure.

We actually met a Ski Club rep in Tower Gully on the Ben back in June 1994.

He was skiing it rather than measuring the depth.

Obviously a sensible non-obsessed chap !

Leaders don't/have never measured snow depth, fact. Going back a few years they would give the Club the snow depth they got from the resort, however they don't do this now as the Club get those figures directly from the resorts'websites.

It really is as simple as you being confused by what you saw/heard.

Yup, not automated data, just a copy and paste job?!

Yeah, they copy and paste the official snow depth. What do you expect them to do, go and drill 50 cores samples to get an average?

The electronic alternatives may be of greater diversionary interest:

[mashable.com]

So the leader that I saw stopping the group while he probed snow depths at both the top and bottom of the mountain was a total figment of my imagination then? You simply don't get confused about that sort of thing I am afraid. Or what about the different leader I saw that at the top of the mountain went over to the side and was taking readings from a preplaced depth gauge in the snow and writing it down in a notebook and later that day was reading from that notebook as he phoned in his snow report?

To suggest that I imagined these incidents is frankly insulting.



You have now contradicted yourself. You previously claimed that Ski Club reps never reported snow depths. Now you are saying that they did but only the official resort depths. Both statements cannot be true, so one of them is a falsification of varsities and as such your statements cannot be trusted because they change.

A simple explanation of how the SCGB obtains its snow depth data - for resorts with or without a SCGB rep/leader, and Scottish resorts ... is best given by the Club's CEO.

This thread commenced with an open letter to Frank McCusker on his first day in the job. I'll try again shortly, and see if the first anniversary of that letter can be marked with an open reply, addressing the issues raised!






Edited 1 times. Last edit at 09.12hrs Thu 13 Jun 13 by David Goldsmith.

Fuck sake, I said they passed on the official snow depths recorded by the resorts to the Club, usually by FAX. Since the internet, however, the Club collect all the official depths directly from the resorts' websites.

This is what I actually said: "Ski Club Leaders have never been asked to measure snow depths."

What don't you understand about that statement? I certainly didn't say they never reported back what the resorts were publishing. There you go, if you cannot even follow a few posts on here, I can now see why you got so confused by what you saw the reps doing.

I did the Reps' course in 1989, and we were NEVER expected to measure snow depths ourselves. Fuck knows what you saw, but it clearly wasn't what you thought you saw.




Edited 3 times. Last edit at 17.21hrs Thu 13 Jun 13 by Pippin.

+1 for Pippin. They're right.

The Ski Club of Great Britain began sending reps to ski resorts in 1928, and (as far as I'm aware) they began posting/telegramming snow reports to London from that time.

The fact that 60 years later "Pippin" (can't see any reason for a SCGB rep or ex-rep to use a pseudonym, but anyway) does a training course doesn't mean that we know for sure that Ski Club reps have "never" measured snow depths. Since, for many decades, the Club stood for serious technical understanding and research of skiing (as distinct from acting as a marketing agency), I should think there's a good chance that during the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s or 1970s the reps were doing what the Club states that it does today - obtains and publishes "unbiased" snow depths.

Fuck sake, this thread is unbelievable. Pippin is my family name, you imbecile. Do you want my address and bank details as well as the names and addresses of the people the Club use to gather info on Scottish snow?

I really am starting to detect that some of you people aren't exactly all there, so to speak and not to put too finer point on it.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 17.25hrs Fri 14 Jun 13 by Pippin.