Best guess at the Scottish weather??

As my other thread says (sorry for starting a new one but that dried up!),
I'm planning to shoot up for a slide over easter. I now have availability of
a chalet near Nevis or Aviemore. I did consider going somewhere in-between,
but obviously that would mean more travel in what MAY be a busy time....

Question is..... which way is the wind going to blow? (cookie
crumble....toast land etc...). I've not skied at Aviemore so am having
trouble weighing up the 2 options. Which is MOST likely to have some decent
sport over easter? I've always assumed Nevis because of the extra altitude,
but further east did better out of the recent snowfall......

Any good guesses?

J

On Tue, 8 Mar 2005 13:17:49 +0000 (UTC), "John Ricketts"
wrote:



Any good guesses?

J


Extract of a report below is from the Winterhighland website - looks
like you're probably going to do better in the Cairngorms for the
amount of snow. Certainly most of the weather in the past couple of
weeks has favoured snowfall in the E Highlands rather than the West.

"Snow conditions are the best since the 2001 season, with most of the
snow falling in the east. Don't just think about getting out there -
act.

Continental snow conditions have been attracting the snow junkies to
the slopes, with 20 inches of fresh snow falling at CairnGorm
recently, on top of the base that was already there. Off-piste areas
open notably include the East Lady which offers a massive area of
fresh snow with few rocks. Other off-piste areas include the East
Wall, Cas Headwall, and Coronation Wall. All runs are complete, with
the Gunbarrel finally receiving enough snow to allow it to be packed
down."


The full report can be seen on

http://www.winterhighland.info/general/

which is probably your best resource for deciding which way to turn
when you get north of Drumochter!


Paul
Leigh
Lancs

In message , John Ricketts
writes
As my other thread says (sorry for starting a new one but that dried up!),
I'm planning to shoot up for a slide over easter. I now have availability of
a chalet near Nevis or Aviemore. I did consider going somewhere in-between,
but obviously that would mean more travel in what MAY be a busy time....

Question is..... which way is the wind going to blow? (cookie
crumble....toast land etc...). I've not skied at Aviemore so am having
trouble weighing up the 2 options. Which is MOST likely to have some decent
sport over easter? I've always assumed Nevis because of the extra altitude,
but further east did better out of the recent snowfall......

A pointless exercise. Things can change that quickly, however, it
changes slightly less quickly further east. East is generally colder
too. I'm going tomorrow to Cairngorm. I suspect it will depress me but
what the hell. It looks good just now and snow and cold is forecast for
the weekend. I would guess that Cairngorm will hold its snow for easter
but as I have already said, any guess is a pointless exercise. I have
seen 2 feet of snow disappear in a morning.
--
Pete Devlin
[{//////news03//////at\\\\\secondrow/////co\\\\\uk}]
"Mind the oranges Marlon!"

"pete devlin" wrote in message
...

A pointless exercise. Things can change that quickly, however, it
changes slightly less quickly further east. East is generally colder
too. I'm going tomorrow to Cairngorm. I suspect it will depress me but
what the hell. It looks good just now and snow and cold is forecast for
the weekend. I would guess that Cairngorm will hold its snow for easter
but as I have already said, any guess is a pointless exercise. I have
seen 2 feet of snow disappear in a morning.

Never a truer word spoken, it changes so quickly. Do not go this weekend
though as you will be skiing in blizzards with very strong winds and no
vis.

Joe

"pete devlin" wrote in message
...

I'm going tomorrow to Cairngorm. I suspect it will depress me but
what the hell. It looks good just now and snow and cold is forecast for
the weekend. I would guess that Cairngorm will hold its snow for easter
but as I have already said, any guess is a pointless exercise. I have
seen 2 feet of snow disappear in a morning.

Thats very true, here today, gone tomorrow.

I was up there for a few days last week and though the snow cover was better
than I can rember it for a long time the whole area apart from the lower day
lodge slopes were covered in low cloud. 3 days of snow/blizzards with the
usual gusting winds now and then made for a tricky few days skiing. On
Wednesday morning, after a good dump of snow the off-piste area beside the
White Lady was in good shape. Even with a foot ++ of fresh powder I still
managed to find a rock. Nice deep gouge in the base of one ski. White Lady
was good most of the week, M1 was in OK condition though not fully open as
the army champs were running. Thursday morning was nice, bad vis cleared and
had a good 4 hr spell of blue skis and could actually see what/where I had
been skiing. Very difficult conditions made good by decent snow.

Look forward to your current view on things.

Kevin.

In message , KMM writes
Look forward to your current view on things.

I'm quite pleased and ****ed off at the same time! There was good snow
to be had all the way to the day lodge but it is melting (lower down)
and won't last much longer without some more cold weather. Visibility
was pretty much as you describe; almost white out at the top and flat
but ok lower down.
We blasted up and down the Coire Cas to start off with which was quite
nice. At the top there is an awful lot of snow still and it was nice and
wide. So wide that our last run prompted us to find some off piste
towards Fiacale Ridge which was untracked but heavy. (It snowed in the
pm). The white lady was like marbles frozen together; not quite blue
ice but hard and chattery on the skis. Frozen tapioca might be a better
description. It hasn't been pisted for ages. As a result it was empty
which most of our crowd enjoyed but the noise from his skis and the flat
light was just a bit much for one! After his pleas we moved to the M2.
Strangely it has an experts only sign at the top which probably accounts
for why it was empty. It was a great carvy blast from top to bottom.
Almost good skiing! ) Later they opened the West Wall Poma. The small
amount of Aonach Bowl open was very nice but one of our number knacked
his knee in the thick off piste so he got a skidoo down. What ****ed me
off here is the vast amount of snow in that bowl, on the west wall and
down the coire na ciste. None of it was open!!! I think it may be down
to the lack of staff but had all of that been open it would have been
pretty awesome. It's not often that there is enough snow to ski to the
lower car park but they are preventing it at the moment. If I was there
at the weekend and it was busy then I would be demanding they open it or
give me my money back. That's another thing that ****ed me off. In the
old days my profession got a reduction. Not now, if we were so mercenary
we would charge them every time they needed an airlift for a casualty.
Today they charged full price for what was for most people one run and
the nursery slopes. Scandalous but I suppose they have to pay for the
funicular and the rest of the season when there wasn't any snow! I
suppose that I had quite a good day's skiing. The lack of wind helped
but good vis would have made for quite a day (for Scotland). Opening up
the whole resort, as there is clearly enough snow to do, would have made
for a better day too.
Will I go back? Well it does beat work but I wouldn't go if there were
queues as there will be at Easter or the weekends. If there is still
snow in two weeks I might go.
I realise that there hasn't been much snow in recent years and times are
hard but why then did they build the train? In the old chairlift days
they at least pisted the runs to preserve them and opened the runs where
the snow was good enough.
--
Pete Devlin
[{//////news03//////at\\\\\secondrow/////co\\\\\uk}]
"Mind the oranges Marlon!"

Aviemore, the only ski run, where the wind has blown me back up a fairly
steep run.
Ah but dont you just love it.
Gordon Dudgeon
"John Ricketts" wrote in message
...
As my other thread says (sorry for starting a new one but that dried up!),
I'm planning to shoot up for a slide over easter. I now have availability
of a chalet near Nevis or Aviemore. I did consider going somewhere
in-between, but obviously that would mean more travel in what MAY be a
busy time....

Question is..... which way is the wind going to blow? (cookie
crumble....toast land etc...). I've not skied at Aviemore so am having
trouble weighing up the 2 options. Which is MOST likely to have some
decent sport over easter? I've always assumed Nevis because of the extra
altitude, but further east did better out of the recent snowfall......

Any good guesses?

J

Felly sgrifennodd KMM :
Thursday morning was nice, bad vis cleared and
had a good 4 hr spell of blue skis and could actually see what/where I had
been skiing.

I'm surprised the colour of your skis makes that much difference!



Adrian (blue skis also so in theory should be able to see where I'm going)
--
Adrian Shaw ais@
Adran Cyfrifiadureg, Prifysgol Cymru, aber.
Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Cymru ac.
http://users.aber.ac.uk/ais uk

Felly sgrifennodd John Ricketts :
As my other thread says (sorry for starting a new one but that dried up!),
I'm planning to shoot up for a slide over easter. I now have availability of
a chalet near Nevis or Aviemore.

Have you booked yet? Because looking at some of the weather forecasts for
this coming week it's looking decidedly mild, with temperatures up into the
mid teens. They might have loads of snow in Scotland at the moment, but how
long it will survive with temperatures like that I don't know.

Adrian

--
Adrian Shaw ais@
Adran Cyfrifiadureg, Prifysgol Cymru, aber.
Aberystwyth, Ceredigion, Cymru ac.
http://users.aber.ac.uk/ais uk

On 13 Mar 2005 12:51:41 -0000, (Adrian D. Shaw)
squeezed out the following:

Felly sgrifennodd John Ricketts :
As my other thread says (sorry for starting a new one but that dried up!),
I'm planning to shoot up for a slide over easter. I now have availability of
a chalet near Nevis or Aviemore.

Have you booked yet? Because looking at some of the weather forecasts for
this coming week it's looking decidedly mild, with temperatures up into the
mid teens. They might have loads of snow in Scotland at the moment, but how
long it will survive with temperatures like that I don't know.

Indeed. According to one of the (Glenshee) locals we were chatting to
the Scottish resorts haven't had the weeks of frost necessary to get
the ground cold enough to hang onto the snow.

--
Colin Irvine