Dig for Britain
Tuesday January 19, 2010 - Email this article to a friend

Well, Scotland to be exact. Dozens and dozens of volunteers turned out at Cairngorm to dig the resort out of all the snow. It has been shut for days as there was too much snow to open it. Check out the pictures.

The request went out.

The resort can open again if enough volunteers come forward to dig away all the snow. They are needed as the lifts are buried in places and can't run.

With that around 70 people turned out with shovels - many from the local ski school as they had been unable to teach anybody and wanted to get things going again.

Heavy diggers and snowploughs cleared the road but manpower was needed to dig out the lifts.

The photos below of the dig were sent in to us at PlanetSKI from The Ski School.

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Here on PlanetSKI we have covered the news that some of Scotland's ski resort were closed because of all the snow, and the efforts to try to open up the road last weekend.

There were drifts of up to 5m and still the top runs are not yet open though it is hoped to get them running by the end of the week.

The resort had 4,000 visitors over the Christmas holidays period and since then has had over 30,000 lift tickets sales making it one of the busiest winters since the hey day of Scottish skiing in the 1970's.

"We have re-opened on Monday after a long dig,"Colin Kirwook, from the resort, told BBC Scotland.

"We have been closed for a whole week because of the weather, which is just ironic. We have had perfect snow on the hills, but the wind was too much. We have shifted tonnes of snow over the last week, and skiers and snowboarders can reach the lower runs. We are still working on the higher ground, having to dig out the Ptarmigan and surrounding areas."

So what are conditions like now? Here is a statement from the resort's web site on Tuesday morning.

"Top station weather. 30mph SW, -1C, visibility good although there is snow blowing around which reduces it considerably. Yesterday we had the Car Park, Ridge, Shieling, Cas and M1 tows running. Today we hope to have the train running along with all above tows. Work will then continue getting the Day Lodge, Ciste and Ptarmigan open. After a fantastic effort we have now got the Train Track and Tunnel Mouth dug out, Ptarmigan Top Station now open for business."

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