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Scottish resorts dig themselves out
Tuesday March 2, 2010 - Email this article to a friend
It's a week of clearing and digging as the resorts tried to take advantage of the huge snowfalls. All 5 resorts had problems opening their access roads and Cairngorm was buried the deepest in the huge levels of snow.
The access road was closed. The train, lifts and buildings were buried. There were drifts of over 2m.
That though didn't stop people turning out to dig the resort out so the excellent snow conditions could be enjoyed.
However, the director of the local ski school, Mike Shepherd, says it will take a while to clear all the snow away and dig the resort out completely.
The first dig
One small area was open for skiing and the authorities are urging people to be extremely cautious off piste and if they choose to go ski touring.
There have been 2 significant avalanches in Scotland in recent days. 2 skiers were swept away in Glencoe as we reported earlier within this story. They had a lucky escape.
Also an avalanche came down on the A93 road burying a 50m section of it.
No-one was hurt.
Here's a video of the huge drifts being cleared from the front door of the base station at Cairngorm Mountain on 26th February. Wow!
And here are some pictures from the weekend that have just been sent to us, where it looks slightly more hospitable.
Look how the rail track is covered
They seem pleased!
Yes, this is Scotland
With thanks to The Ski School for the pictures.
A statement on the resort's web site sums it up.
"A team of diggers continues to clear a phenomenal amount of fresh snow from the funicular track and tunnel and the whole team is working as hard as possible. We will open what we can weather permitting. The train still requires a serious amount of digging as we are still clearing the large drifts."
It's not the first time people have had to dig the resort out this winter and it will take several days.
In Glencoe they worked hard on Friday and Saturday and the resort opened for skiing and snowboarding at the weekend.
Those who managed to make it reported excellent conditions.
Glenshee; web camera picture courtesy of Winter HighlandGlenshee was perhaps not quite as good, though we have not heard directly from anyone who was there and have just obtained the information from its web site.
"All runs complete with lee aspects in last weeks storm now having a phenomenal amount of snow in places. Extensive groomers on many fenced runs giving fantastic sport on machine packed powder. Wind packed and windblown fresh off the pisted areas, but some more scoured and harder packed sections."
The Lecht meanwhile opened at the weekend too with 800 people out enjoying the conditions.
"There is more snow then we can recall every since starting the Lecht in 1977. There is lots of great snow at the moment, you can hardly see the fencing which is all 4ft high at least," says the Director of The Lecht Ski Company, Pieter du Pon.
"With the snow we tend to get the winds here as well so we have had problems with the roads this weekend and only managed to have one access road open from the North at about 10.30. Also a lot of the local area had heaps of snow low down and so those roads were a bit tricky as well. So, about 800 skiers today having a great time and the next two days should be alpine."
The two photos below were taken in The Lecht the previous weekend, February 20th/21st.
Ski resorts in Scotland are continuing to enjoy an epic winter.
Were you out skiing or snowboarding in Scotland? We'd love to hear what it was like. And if you can send any pictures to inbox@planetski.eu then even better.PlanetSKI reserves the right to edit any comments. In most cases a selection of your comments will be published, displaying your name and location unless you state otherwise in the box below.
I wish I lived in Scotland! Lucky b*ggars!!
Francesca B, Brighton
I went to Glenshee at the weekend to compete in a race.
I won bronze in Junior 2 FIS race, so very happy.
It was my first time in Scotland.It is by no means the Alps, but my pessimistic view of Scottish ski resorts has somewhat changed.
There is enough skiing in Glenshee to keep most skiers happy, but if you are looking for steep, long terrain then Scotland probably isn't for you. It was extremely windy at the top, to the extent it was easier to go up the hill than down. On Sunday the resort was very busy with the first tourists arriving at 8am.
It's not nearly as bad as I thought it might be and as i had been led to believe by media reports and I would gladly ski there again!
Ben, Bristol
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