First day back on the mountain after the storms. It must have been brutal in the last couple of days and many West facing slopes are completely bare, stripped clean of any snow. Even North East ridges have had the snow removed. Areas like the top of Jeans Bowl are now a boulder field and you have to be creative to get in, but once in, wow!

The stripped snow has landed in the hollows and boy is it deep in places. The Cas and white Lady are big gainers. The Gun barrel has gone and flat with the tow path. The lady is full width and more, flat from the Scottish Ski Club hut to the train track. I have not seen this since 2013. The quality of the snow is very good though you could find some thin areas lower down on the car park run.

Surprisingly Side Slope, the bottom part for the Fiacaill Ridge run has caught a lot of snow. I was keeping high from Jeans Bowl and onto side slope, back to the Ridge Poma. A very nice ski through the deep fresh snow.

It was not till late morning the wind dropped enough to get the M1 and the Ptarmigan / polar express areas open. Once they did the queues which were long and unruly, quite unpleasant, dissipated. Becoming for the majority, ski on with out waiting.

For those who know me I am fairly reserved and do not use profanity, today that changed and I blew a gasket. Mother, father and two older children were using the Cas t-bar. First child goes round the bull wheel and keeps going on the down line holding the bar fully extended then let it fly. It missed the EMO stop bar by mm. The second child started to do the same and I shouted for them to let go. The father, who I found was Italian, and the family, started to have a go at me saying he knew how to use a t-bar and got quite animated, well I let rip his family got to see their father verbally taken down a peg. I cant stand by and watch our equipment badly abused and potentially killing some one in the process with a t-bar though their skull. Strange most people thank you when you politely point out how to put the cas t-bar back as it makes life much easier for them, not this Italian family, as we know holiday makers at half term know best

The staff were having trouble with queue management too, at one point the shout for help came from one of the staff trying to manage the Ridge poma. I took my skis off and between us manage to get it back under control. The nice lady beside me got quite agitated and eventual said loudly”I AM BEFORE YOU” I politely said yes you are, I am helping the lifty arrange the line and I don’t have my skis on, they are over beside the hut! She was a little embarrassed I think, I just smiled and said enjoy you ski!

Anyway, half term chaos aside, the skiing is lovley. Most runs are open, there is ample off piste and Ryvoan and Ciste Gully are being worked on. Skied Rita’s Ridge back to the Ciste Car park, not the bast skiing more just because I could.

Graeme

When was the last time you saw this, the White Lady full width. I think it was 2013. Lovely snow.


Some one stole the gun barrel during the storm!


The old Fiacaill t-bar run was a very nice ski, wide and soft.


The lower half of side slope has really caught the snow, normally combat skiing here, not today. Look at the queues for the train, car park t-bar and the Ridge poma. This quickly dissipated as the M1 and upper mountain opened.


looking back up to the West Wall from Rita's Ridge. Lots of activity in here from the ground team getting things ready for the week end. Huge quantities of snow being pushed about.






Edited 2 times. Last edit at 19.42hrs Fri 16 Feb 18 by WindyMiller.

Attachments: West Wall.JPG (192kB)   White Lady Width.JPG (253kB)   Side slope.JPG (239kB)   Fiacaill.JPG (262kB)   Gunbarrel.JPG (226kB)  

OK, nobody laugh at me.... I've booked a pass online from Gorm website

Any local knowledge on where to pick up the pass... and how early does the desk open for picking it up.?

Thanks.

I am laughing and I hurts !!!
8 years and counting since they got my cash

To be honest, I'm giggling a bit myself. I'm taking skins in case needed.

Hope I'm still smiling on the road home !

Great report and pics Graeme. Sorry you had so much hassle.

There is a machine like an ATM just inside the door of the Store House restaurant in the day lodge. I have never seen any one use it, don't even know if it works but it is meant to be to dispense tickets ordered on line. If it does not work then the only other place is the ticket desk inside the funicular station. Get there early, the lower cas car park is filling up by 09:00. Though the ciste is not too bad an option as you can ski back using Rita's Ridge. Just a pain waiting for the bus first thing in the morning.

Thanks Eric, just a bit of a downer with the behaviour seen to-day.

Thanks WM. I notice the Gorm page tells me strictly NOT to go to the main ticket desk. - So fingers crossed !

I'll get up early. Maybe it'll work like a "fine tooned machine"

There is a ticket collection machine in the Storehouse on Level 2 of the Daylodge, whether it works or you have to go to the ticket office is a different story... but try it first!

Ta. What could possibly go wrong. ?

Can’t remember my last day at Gorm. It’s been a while.

I noticed Ops1 says “Gunbarrel so full it’s concave”... think about that for a moment ;-)

Haha, oops!

HTH, I used the machine 2 week’s ago, I was there about 815, the screen was black... found a member of staff upstairs at the rentals bit who came down and after about 10/15 mins got it working and tickets duly came out. Not sure what plan b would have been if they hadn’t got it to work, I did ask if they could simply print off the tickets at the rentals dept but this didn’t sound like an option.

After yesterdays stressful day I went up this morning with a promise to myself not to get upset with the holiday makers. There was no need, it looks like the horrible batch have gone home, Saturday being change over day for many hotels and self catering homes. The queues were shorter and much more pleasant. It also helped that the sun was splitting the sky. It was a bit breezy to start with delaying the opening of the upper runs till late morning and the west wall poma at lunchtime. This allowed even the short queues to dissipate.

The Lady and the Cas are just a pleasure to ski, wide soft snow top to bottom.

Ryvoan made its season debut and what an entrance! Similar to the white lady I do not recall the last time I saw it so wide at the bottom. The entrance was the usual two/three machine widths then it opened to a massive steep playing field. In my opinion better than the lady as it is steeper and more of a challenge. The winch cat was working in the ciste gully and we were asked to keep clear and off the west wall run to let them carry out the work.

The entrance to Jeans bowl is a little tricky with the scouring that occurred. Today the narrow entrance was a little scraped for the first couple of meters but once in it was great all the way down to either the car park run or side slope to the ridge poma.

I had a look over towards gully No1, it was great last week but now with the scouring I could not see a clear way in.

Very few locals about, must have been scared off by my report yesterday so I ended up skiing on my own for much of the day. Never a good thing as I just get faster and faster till I exhaust myself. Had to go home about 15:00, a shame in such good weather.

Nice to meet HTH on the slopes and good you got your pass sorted out quickly. May be next time we can arrange a little excursion off piste once you have had your fill of bacon butties!

Graeme

Mid mountain over view from jeans Bowl.


The Lady is still delivering, excellent width and snow quality
You can see over to jeans bowl and side slope and the wide expanse of snow over there.


Lower side slope, compare the queues with yesterdays picture, Significantly less.


Entrance to Ryvoan, hiding what is just about to appear over the lip. I did notice the poles this year are black and not red. I always remember this as a red run and that is what is shown on the piste map.


Once over the Ryvoan entrance lip a wide expanse opens up, great skiing








Edited 2 times. Last edit at 18.16hrs Sat 17 Feb 18 by WindyMiller.

Attachments: Mid Mountain.JPG (192kB)   Side Slope.JPG (215kB)   White Lady.JPG (199kB)   Ryvoan Entrance.JPG (213kB)   Lower Ryvoan.JPG (217kB)  

Turned out good today. Nice to meet Graeme (WM) in a reasonably well disciplined M1 Queue

Online ticket worked for my mate. But not for me. The email with code for the “ATM” was not sent to me. Went to Main desk and they sorted it. Met 2 others therecwith same issue. But we didn’t lose much time over it.

Busy but queues not so bad due to surface lifts running to help get punters up hill. Exposes how poor the train is at shifting volume of skiers.

But on the runs, great snow as Windy says above. The available long runs such as White Lady really are in great shape.

Off piste was mostly white concrete. With odd patches of blown dry powder.

I don’t like the ticket price. But the operation did its job today and must folk seemed to be getting their sport. A good day out... and too much bacon as a Graeme says. !

Has the funicular been set on summer speed to same money (500kw instead of 1Mw)?

It seems very slow yesterday.

Funicular was running very slowly on Saturday. I assumed it was due to snow build up on the tracks.