Who cares what they are called, the conditions are excellent,the queues non existent, keep up the good reports.
By the way, there is nobody at the other ski centres either.

Exactly snmartin. The conditions are great just now and the Ops Teams have done a fantastic job. Credit where credit's due. I rely on this thread for making a decision as to whether I go skiing or not.

conditions look great and this thread is great to see how they are so top marks to windy for continuing to do so despite some folk trying to hijack it with negative comments!

What a day it was on Cairngorm today. It really doesn’t get much better. My one negative comment would be that the number of people on the hill put the remaining lifts under pressure, and with such fantastic skiing on the Ciste side, the WWP was feeling the strain.

A great day on the hill today, view the public reports for more

Nice to meet Winterhighlander Windymiller on he hill today





Public reports
[www.winterhighland.info]



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Thanks for the comments here and the numerous people that stopped me on the mountain to-day mentioning what they had read last night, even a family from London! I will continue to post on the conditions as I see them and as I have said before, please, if you have been up write a few lines and any pictures you may have taken. It is nice to see other points of view.

I have to agree with bogbiker, it was a stunner to-day. The cas car parks filled by 09:30 and by lunchtime the ciste car park was ¾ full. The mountain split into two parts, the cas side and the ciste. If you skied the cas side you wondered where every one was. The cas and car park lifts had empty bars going round. The Ridge poma had no queue most of the time. The M1 varied from a hand full of people to occasionally three spaced out lines.

The Ciste side was a different story. The Ciste and Ptarmigan t-bars had reasonable lines for a weekend, not excessive but the West Wall Poma was collecting the crowds. Fine up to 10:45 then long lines formed, indicative of the superb skiing and pisting of so many new routes. We could see what was happening from high on the east side of the Ciste and changed tack switching to lapping the freshly pisted Laogh Mor down to the shuttle bus which had no wait. Using the shuttle bus, the Fiacaill Ridge Poma, the M1 and Ptarmigan you could utilise the maximum down hill for the least waiting and avoiding the WWP completely.

The snow was surprisingly different to yesterday, it was much lighter and easy to ski. If you could find some areas that had not been pisted, parts of the east Ptarmigan, the meadows, easy fresh tracks could be made.

Another route down the east of the ciste has been pisted, and boy is it steep and fun! Much steeper than Gull No2. It has been named Black Cat Alley by the team. It drops straight down the face of the East Ciste to join at the roadway out to the WWP. The boys said when they were pisting it there were a few eek moments, steeper than 30o.

The Head Wall has avalanched the full horse shoe. I was hoping to ski the Coronation was and a saw a few folks had done it but I kept clear. I will give it some time to settle.

Run of the day was by far the far left when you get off the Ptarmigan into the Meadows keeping high and dropping into Laogh Mor, much higher than the pisted route. A surprising high number of people taking the lower route and back to the bus but only our group taking the Meadows and the high route.

Nice to meet winterhighlander Skicadets, junior and senior today.

Lots of pictures going up on facebook later.
[www.facebook.com]

Graeme

Lovely soft snow, the Ptarmigan Traverse


Surprisingly quiet on the cas side of the mountain. Excellent cover


If you can find areas not pisted it was easy to lay fresh tracks in the soft snow.
This was the Meadows on the way to Laogh Mor. No one over here other than our group. It does take a little knowledge to get the navigation over here. Make sure you ask some one that knows before trying it.


The Ciste, Adam and Ruari brought their pisting A game in here before we all arrived.


The Laogh Mor return has been pisted again and it was being well used, there were two shuttle buses running.








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Amazing day on the hill today and hardly queued at all (apart from wwp). We basically had the M2 to oursleves. The Cas side was really quiet as well.

I didn't spend too much time in the ski area yesterday, before heading off to Loch Avon when the WWP started getting busy. However the Ciste was in cracking condition with four or five lines pisted on the East Wall. The park is getting there too, just make sure you don't drift left off any of the kickers.








Edited 1 times. Last edit at 09.12hrs Mon 2 Apr 18 by StevieMcK.

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After yesterdays amazing day to-day was a complete contrast and a challenge. The cloud hung over the mountain with snow falling constantly in the morning, more like frozen pellets stinging your face in the strong easterly, bitterly cold. The visibility was coming and going as the snow showers moved through ranging from flat light to zero. Much of the time it was difficult to work out which way was up and when you were moving or stopped.

There has been good accumulations of snow freshening the surface after the quantity of people skiing yesterday. We tried to ski the Ciste gully but not being able to see your feet made life difficult. Occasionally the sun would try to break through so we headed up to the new Black Cat Alley run. It was actually very good to ski. The east side of the Ciste is accumulating the most snow.

Lower down the mountain in the Cas was the place to be with better contrast. We skied the zigzags for the first time in a few days, nice, wide and forgiving in the new snow.

Not as many people around as yesterday but not a bad turn out. No queues to speak of, even on the WWP.

With the challenging weather we decided to call it a day about lunch time and a few others doing the same.

Not a day for pictures so no facebook post.
The good snow is there we just need the weather to improve.

Graeme

P.S. Forgot to mention I have been called away on business for a while, that is if the forecast snow does not close the airports again. Not sure on my return date. Please keep up the posts so I can see what I am missing

Don't know if it is just me but I hadn't noticed the avalanche transceiver test point before.The warning flags were flying and not a day to go venturing.


The ciste during one of the better spells of visibility, even this was a bit of a challenge.


Even at 10:00 there were no queues. The Cas load area.


The cas had the better contrast. The boulder field is filling in with the falling snow.


The zigzags are wide and soft with the fresh snow. Jeans Bowl is catching some snow. It would be nice if this fills in, one of my favourite areas on the mountain when there is no advanced off piste.








Edited 2 times. Last edit at 17.22hrs Mon 2 Apr 18 by WindyMiller.

Attachments: cas load.JPG (176kB)   ciste.JPG (138kB)   Transceiver.JPG (188kB)   ZigZags.JPG (178kB)   Cas.JPG (151kB)  

Good day up at Cairngorm despite the poor visibility.

Public reports
[www.winterhighland.info]

A photo from today...





Edited 1 times. Last edit at 17.02hrs Mon 2 Apr 18 by Skicadets.

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Strange how the strain on the WWP is a 10 min queue. Do people not remember the 12 lines at the WhiteLady and 40 mins wait.

Strange how nobody complains about the other centres when the lifts seldom un or brake down for days at a time. Perception is in the eye of the absent.

Aye.....but folks could ski the whole length of the White Lady then !!

And you still can.