I had two days off from skiing and today was the first day back after the rain yesterday and over night.

Visually the mountain looks very different. The areas that had been scoured,after the rain, are now completely bare. It looks like the runs have been decimated, but no, they haven't. The runs are still full width and deep with a couple of exceptions lower down.

What has changed is the quality of the snow. Lower down it is soggy with a hard base, mid mountain it is hard and upper mountain has a coating of fresh snow. By lunchtime the cas and lady had softened up though the upper mountain remained well below zero. The lady and cas are still a good ski so don't get put off if you want to come up.

The day lodge run has suffered the most and does not look pretty, skiable but definitely combat. Burnside and the other lower runs are still presentable and fine for beginners to wind their way down.

The upper bowls have a small amount of fresh snow though there are some scraped areas to be aware of.

The clag sat on the summits and the level moved up and down thorough out the day, usually above the tunnel mouth. In the clag ice would form on your clothes.

Not the best day this season but not the worst either. There are still holiday makers around though nowhere as many as last week. The queues were tiny and the people I spoke with said they were having a great time!

Graeme


The M2 is still deep and full width. Strange to ski down a good run with brown on both sides.


Over yonder has a couple of brown patches, still skiable. The Aonach bowl is still skiable but getting in is tricky from the old poma unload area.


Ryvoan has heather appearing at the bottom. It is still very wide and you can easily avoid the obstacles but you can see how thin it is lower down.


The Lady is still in good condition. You did need to have sharp edges to keep in control half way down. Fresh at the top, hard in the middle and soft at the bottom.
Look over to the lower fiacaill, a lot of heather and rocks appearing.


The day lodge is suffering. Lets see what the next few days bring.









Edited 1 times. Last edit at 16.53hrs Tue 20 Feb 18 by WindyMiller.

Attachments: Ryvoan.JPG (182kB)   over yonder.JPG (247kB)   M2.JPG (207kB)   White Lady.JPG (212kB)   Day Lodge.JPG (245kB)  

It was pretty firm up there today. I actually preferred the snow yesterday when it was wetter as it was very Spring-like. I am glad we are at the end of the mild spell and looking like only getting colder from here onwards - a great base to have!

A beautiful day on the mountain, deep blue sky and light winds. The wide snow cover on the runs looked inviting……. but they were not, proper boiler plate ice in many places. The white lady was an exercise in side ways skiing and once I got to the bottom I just thought well it looks pretty but not going there again!

The upper cas was more like fresh snow but as you progressed down it became more and more polished, lemon pledge polished. The gun barrel was a skating rink that would not have been out of place at the Olympics. The good news is you could use the zigzags which were actually ok.

The upper bowls were fine as they did not have the same amount of rain as the middle and lower slopes. Still soft snow and easy to ski.

The ciste gully is open but icy and full of death cookies. I had a proper wipe out on here, the first in two years when I did my knee in. Luckily no damage done and more importantly no one saw me. So I deny it, was not me. The traverse out has been made into a roadway which is also icy.

And a tail to tell. If you are in a large queue and on your own, even if you do not want to you will be joined by another single. No matter how aggrieved you are loosing out on your single bar don’t, no matter how tempted, verbally abuse the person that has joined you, it is not going to end well. Especially if you are wearing SOS rented skis. After the third batch of ~@)* off tirade from the person, this is 1/3 of the way up the lift, where are you expected to go, well since he so badly wanted to be alone, he was. I cant remember the last time I ejected some one from a T-bar, think it was the old Tiger t-bar on cairnwell, but I still have the knack. The interesting fact was this was not a child, it was a male in his early 20’s from the North of England, he was left in a heap with a string of profanities and threats. Do you think he learned as lesson? I don’t think so.
If you are unhappy with some one joining you when the queues are large, just don’t speak to the person, they will get the message quickly. Or you could use the opportunity to ask about the slopes, places to go or even get some tips on how to be more confident on the lift. Or better still stick to the polar express.

I love mid term

Graeme

best skiing on the mountain is the upper bowls, the snow has remained fresh.


Ciste Bowl is also good.


Ciste gully wide though rock hard with rubble.


Lower slopes are intact though hard in places


Well there is a movement to have the Aviemore skating rink rebuilt. Just did not realise it was going to be in the gun barrel!







Edited 1 times. Last edit at 18.56hrs Wed 21 Feb 18 by WindyMiller.

Attachments: Skating Rink.JPG (234kB)   lower slopes.JPG (257kB)   Ptarmigan Bowl.JPG (228kB)   Ciste gully.JPG (236kB)   Ciste bowl.JPG (221kB)  

Lovely day with little wind for most, building slightly in the afternoon. Many people had payed heed to the hard /icy warnings and stayed away and indeed it was hard and icy in places.

The ground team have done a superb job getting the surface of a number of areas skiable especially the Ptarmigan and Ciste Bowls, fairway etc. These were were nice to ski. The traverse is also good but then things get a little trickier. The cas is hard but not unskiable though it would put a number of people off and the guys recommending for intermediate and above is a wise move. Just keep out of the gun barrel… nothing to see here … just move along! The zigzags are fine for all abilities. A word of warning though, don’t be tempted to venture 1mm away from the prepared runs. It looks lovely but it is bullet proof, no matter how sharp your edges are it is going to hurt!

The lower runs are hard, brick hard and I would recommend most keep away. They did not run the car park or sunkids tows to discourage people from hanging around here.

The surprise was the ciste gully, after a few days ago I was hesitant to go in here. Adam (KB01) had worked his magic this morning and I could not believe the transformation. Yes the snow was firm but pisted to perfection, not a death cookie in sight. The surface was firm corduroy, nice and grippy all the way down to the new westwall road way back to the poma. Not hero snow but good fast carving snow.

The park has sprung up and I will put a few pictures in the park thread.

The Lady was closed to allow the racing. It did not really have any effect on the day as there were so few people around loads of room for all, very little queuing. It was lucky there were so few people as if it had been busy the prepared snow would have taken a beating back to ice.

Over all a good day to be on the mountain. Familiar faces are starting to reappear after mid term mayhem and nice to chat with people again.

Hopefully the forecast for fresh snow during the week does not evaporate, we badly need snow to top up the good base we have.



There is a technical fault with one of the drive units and are waiting for a part, They hope it will be here in the next few days.

Graeme

The ptarmigan area is soft and has nice skiing.


Nessie is back, fun from kids to big kids


A transformation in the Ciste Gully. A great ski down and no queuing at the west wall poma.


Many people got put off skiing the ciste gully due to the steep traverse out to the poma across the west wall black run. This has been solved with a snow road out.


Technically the lower slopes are open though the recommendation was to keep away. They were fine for the last run of the day if you did not need to turn to get back to the car.







Edited 1 times. Last edit at 15.22hrs Sun 25 Feb 18 by WindyMiller.

Attachments: Lower Slopes.JPG (250kB)   Ptarmigan Traverse.JPG (218kB)   Nessie.JPG (242kB)   WestWall Road.JPG (246kB)   Ciste Gully.JPG (201kB)  

Becoming very extreme in the CairnGorms this week

Wind chill will become dangerous by mid week with severe blizzards and whiteout conditions developing I would imagine

Will CairnGorm still open,with such dangerous wind chill,flesh freezing in minutes territory

I’m on holiday this week,and want to visit Mid-week,but worried it’s going to get too extreme,or if they will open

An unusual day on the mountain today. John and I were asked to be witness to a wedding to be carried out at the top station so it was on with the kilts and up we headed.

There was a chilly easterly blowing, especially when wearing your kilt .Low visibility to start with gave flat light on the slopes making it difficult to see hazzards. There has been some fresh snow, about 10-20cm or more in places which was drifting in the breeze. Enough to cover most of the hard base but every third turn or so you would push though and here that distinctive scrape noise.

The sun did come out mid morning, then you could clearly see where the wind had blown the soft snow and the blue colour of the ice making it easy to ski on the soft and avoid the hard areas.

The top runs have gained the most snow as has the traverse. The cas was sheltered and gave very good skiing on both sides of the lift line. We enjoyed the left hand side the best and on to the zigzags though the soft snow. The lower slopes that had been a no go area in the last few days are now fine and easy for most abilities. Patrol had fenced off the biggest patches of ice guiding you down the soft fresh snow.

We did not have time to head over to the ciste gully or the top bowls so I do not know how they have changed with the new snow.

The new snow has greatly improved the surface of the runs though we do need more to make them perfect and withstand heavy traffic. Hopefully this will happen in the next few days.

The part has arrived and been fitted on the train drive system and it is now running much faster.

I will be posting wedding and kilt skiing pictures on face book later

[www.facebook.com]

Graeme

The wedding party, a little on the chilly side


Upper slopes have gained significantly, nice and soft.


Skiers left of the cas was sheltered with nice snow. Vis was a little flat first thing then improved mid morning.


Mid mountain looking much better with the fresh snow.


The lower slopes had been a no go area due to ice, now they are an easy way back down to the base station.






Edited 2 times. Last edit at 20.29hrs Tue 27 Feb 18 by WindyMiller.

Attachments: m1 unload.JPG (224kB)   Cas left.JPG (147kB)   Gun Barrel.JPG (183kB)   Lower Slopes.JPG (220kB)   wedding Party.JPG (210kB)  

That will be the snow on then...





Edited 1 times. Last edit at 11.16hrs Wed 28 Feb 18 by alan.

Attachments: morlich-2018.02.28.11.jpeg (46kB)  

Just love your understatement !

At the moment there is not a huge amount of snow on the ground in the village, 5-10cm but it is -4oC according to our weather station making the falling snow very light and fine. When the winds blows it is whipping up and you can hardly see where you are going. Very dark clouds sitting over the mountain so hopefully dumping down, the road is closed so can get up to see.

Graeme

They still cranking out the man made snow when they can or is it a case of 'its here lets wait till it melts then start'?

Before mid term they were running at every opportunity, especially the big TF10 but recently I have not see them on. On saying that there is a large amount of snow where the cannons are positioned.

I am away from this weekend, depending on Edinburgh Airport opening, so no reports for a wee while. Any one else able to post?

Graeme






Edited 1 times. Last edit at 08.12hrs Fri 2 Mar 18 by WindyMiller.

Cheers Graeme, meant to ask for a while...

I hope someone takes up the challenge of keeping this topped up with pics, only decent resort thread for eye candy !

Well my trip got cancelled so the only thing to do was go skiing

I was hoping for a day of wind blown powder, to be honest I was disappointed. As expect many areas had been scoured and the hard base of the last week is still there, especially the Fiacaill area, this was not fun to ski, not the fresh snow I had hoped.

The Cas and gun barrel have caught snow though it is not light and fluffy, more a crunchy mix of the base and the new snow with occasional icy patch. The light was exceptionally poor with constantly falling snow making navigation quite difficult. The light was so flat it was hard to tell whither you were going up/down slopes or if you had actually stopped. The zig zags have caught the blowing snow and are very good to ski as has the car park run. The gun barrel is wide and flat, full of snow.

By mid morning most people had abandoned the cas area and were only skiing the lower slopes. Most of the bars going round the cas were empty where the car park t-bar had a reasonable queue.

The day lodge poma was running as the lower half of the run has caught the snow. there were people using it but the top half was rutted and icy.

By late afternoon the train opened after a mammoth amount of digging though by this time I was getting cold and tired so did not go up. they did try to open the Fiacaill poma but it was too windy and was turned back off. M1 did not run and nothing up top or ciste side.

Graeme

A frozen looking day lodge building. You can see the day lodge run to the far left, it has caught the snow lower down though hard and rutted higher up.


The cas and gun barrel have continued to gain snow. The gun barrel is wide and flat.


An unusual view, a very very wide top zigzag. Good soft snow here.


Best run off the day? It was the car park run, soft snow and wide opening to a wide beginners area just over the crest in the picture.


@growwild you asked about the snow cannons and whither they had been running. Here is a picture of two of the T40s at mid station. They are over half way buried in snow. The one at the car park is even deeper in.








Edited 1 times. Last edit at 16.31hrs Sat 3 Mar 18 by WindyMiller.

Attachments: Carpark.JPG (160kB)   Snow Cannon.JPG (150kB)   Gunbarrel.JPG (161kB)   zigzags.JPG (157kB)   DayLodge.JPG (209kB)  

An early report today as we finished early in the fairly horrible conditions. It has been snowing heavily all day with the wind blowing directly down the cas and car park runs, visibility at best was poor and at worst you could not make out your feet. Riding the lifts was a challenge and you were a frozen block at the top of the cas or M1.

On saying that the skiing was not too bad as the wind was behind you though the upper cas and upper lady were scoured back to ice in a few places. Half way down the lady and cas things did change to overall soft snow and the lower runs in particular were soft and nice to ski.

Like Saturday people were keeping low down.

The train and M1 came on late morning giving access to the Lady and M1 pistes but not the traverse. A bulge has appeared on the Coronation wall and they can not make a full assessment until the weather improves so the traverse is a no go until then.

The fresh snow is building up in the hollows so when this weather calms down there could be some nice skiing to be had.

Graeme

The white lady is wide and full length though the upper third is icy, the lower 2/3s is soft fresh snow but in the flat light and bad visibility was difficult to ski.


When conditions are a bit difficult the challenge is to find the hidden gems. Skiers left of the gun barrel has caught a lot of fresh snow and was very nice to ski.


The zigzags are probably as good as they get, full of snow up to the top of the fences, soft and wide.


The lower slopes were the best place to be, softer snow and more sheltered.


The blowing snow is ending up at the bottom of the slopes. You can see the car park run and the lower ridge run filling in. Though it is scouring the upper runs, jeans bowl is not looking so good at the moment.








Edited 1 times. Last edit at 15.42hrs Mon 5 Mar 18 by WindyMiller.

Attachments: lower slopes.JPG (152kB)   car park t-bar.JPG (152kB)   parallel to gunbarrel.JPG (143kB)   ZigZag.JPG (135kB)   White Lady.JPG (160kB)