Scotland's five ski areas have had the usual mixed bag of weather to contend with but all have a reasonable amount of terrain available despite having to contend with gales, blizzards and most recently a thaw. However on the upside much of the rain that has been drenching the UK has been falling as snow on the Scottish ski slopes.
CairnGorm Mountain above Aviemore reported on Boxing Day that some 10,000 skiers had visited CairnGorm since the beginning of December.
The resort expects to be busy throughout the holiday period and has arranged, subject to weather conditions being suitable, for floodlit evening skiing and boarding to be available in the top bowls on Thursday 3rd January.
Skiers who already have a day ticket, afternoon ticket or season ticket will be able to ski on into the evening on those days and others can come for the evening session from 4pm for a charge of £9.95. The resort's Ptarmigan restaurant and bar will also remain open. CairnGorm Mountain marketing manager Colin Kirkwood commented:
"We ran one floodlit evening session last season which was very popular with our customers so we decided to offer this again over the holidays in view of the good snow cover we have and which we expect to hold onto over this period. We have hired more floodlighting than we had last year but we are watching the weather closely and if conditions and the forecast indicate that other days may be more attractive for evening snowsports we may switch a date. So we would ask people to watch our website and Facebook page to check on the latest plans for floodlit skiing and boarding."
"The season has got off to a very promising start and a good base has built up with assistance in some areas from the snow guns we are trialling this season. We have already had twice as many skiers as we had had by the same point last year so we remain optimistic about the prospects for snowsports for the New Year while bearing in mind the huge variety of conditions we have experienced over the last three seasons," Colin concluded.