Wishing all readers of Winterhighland all the best for 2009 and hope you had a good one whatever you were up to on Hogmanay.

New Year’s Day brought a flurry or two to the mountains, nothing very significant by any stretch however it was enough to take the edge of the hard base on CairnGorm and the continued cold weather with light winds has allowed the Lecht and Glenshee to fire up their old fan guns to enable all the Eastern areas to offer some riding over the New year period.

The snow making equipment at the Lecht and Glenshee certainly isn’t state of the art and being entirely manual - someone has to go and turn on each hydrant at the required flow and set up the gun - means it’s very cold and wet work, so a big shout for the guys who spent the New Year Holiday getting cold and wet so we could have some more runs to play on !

The success with limited old manual equipment does raise the question of just what might be achievable with a modern, more extensive and at least to some extent automated system. Winterhighland’s AWS (Automatic Weather Station) at the SSC Hut at 2500ft on CairnGorm Mountain has logged over 760hours where the wet-bulb temperature has been cold enough for modern Ratnik Sky Giant air/water guns since the end of October. (Not all these hours would have been suitable due to wind,  but the data also shows the degree to which the foot of the White Lady can be sheltered in certain wind directions. This has implications elsewhere on the mountain in that there will in some wind directions be part of the mountain where snow can be made even when high winds are plaguing much of the mountain.)

Winterhighland into 2009

Well for one thing the blog admin which had problems following an upgrade to the software is fixed! More importantly the site has been widened, partly to accommodate additional advertising, some from Google Adsense, some shared snowsports adverts with Fall Line Media. The really important bit is why these adverts are needed - they are contributing to the substantial cost of a brand new dedicated server for Winterhighland which should significantly improve site load times and stability despite the volatile traffic spikes that inevitably hit whenever snow is forecast and so far it has coped admarilly with some early surges in traffic that October’s excitement caused.

The wider format is gradually being rolled out and it also allows for a summary lift report on the general situation page, wider thumbnails for Pix from the Slopes on the GS and area report pages, plus much larger thumbnails on the front page.

The UK Ice Conditions Server now links into the GS page with the latest photos, several small improvements will be rolled out across the site to provide more cross links to the various member supplied photo galleries on the reports servers, particularly the public reports so they better integrate and compliment the Pix from the Slopes.

Here’s to a snowy 2009.

Every office across the land that has at least one skier or boarder will no doubt have seen productivity drop and bandwidth use rocket today! Snow falling on the webcams at the start of the first significant cold snap of the autumn, yes there was some snow last week and at the start of the Month, but this week things are ramping up another level!

There are weather warnings out from the Met Office for Tuesday, lots of chatter in the weather forums and a real buzz is building. Fellow skiers and boarders… winter is getting closer and for the fist time this new season, the slats on the Ski Club hut’s decks have vanished beneath fresh fluffy snow!

SSC Hut Balcony slats vanish under the snow for the first time this season!

Don’t miss out on your chance to get yourself a brand new Navy or Black Winterhighland Beanie. These beanies feature the Winterhighland* snowflake logo on a single layer style (no turn up this time), so great to use on the hill or for more everyday use.

Beanies will be available for dispatch in the second half of November, but get your order in as numbers are limited, we also have Karabiner Keyrings, various Winterhighland T-shirts and Baseball caps, some potential stocking fillers for Christmas.

www.winterhighland.info/shop

October has marked it’s arrival with the first Snows of the upcoming winter, as a Northerly Plunge sends temperatures diving. Thursday saw the first reasonable covering of snow on the higher tops of the Cairngorms, and there’s also a smattering on the tops in the West.

It all add’s to the excitement and anticipation at the season ahead, but don’t get too carried away just yet - winter proper is officially 11 weeks away yet, that said it’s another sign of the seasons unstoppable march back to winter.

The past two seasons started the last weekend of November (2006/07) and first weekend of December (2007/08) on CairnGorm Mountain with lasting snow, though cover became more limited in the run up and around Christmas both years.

You can now watch how things are shaping up this autumn with our mid-mountain webcams and live weather real-time weather station on CairnGorm Mountain which are now back online following completion of the reinstatement works to flood damage on the hill road (which necessitated the switch off of the power supply for safety). Our cams and AWS are situated in the Scottish Ski Club Hut at 2500ft near the foot of the White Lady.

CairnGorm Mountain has also installed an automatic weather station and two new webcams for the new season, these can be viewed at www.cairngormmountain.com/web-cam and the AWS is located just under 1000ft above the SSC one at the Tunnel Mouth.

The First Snow at the Mid-Station:

See also Pix from the Slopes for a couple of photos from up top on Thursday 2nd October.

With potentially much cooler air due to sink southwards during the coming week we could well see the first sprinkling of new snow on the peaks.

As of Friday 26th Sept our Aviemore web cam hosted by Mountain Spirit (The place for all your backcountry and telemark gear) is back in place providing a 24hour a day view of the Southern end of Aviemore looking down Grampian Road in the direction of the Ski Road Roundabout.

Unfortunately our mid-mountain cameras on CairnGorm Mountain remain off-line for the time being as the Ski Club Hut is without power during the ground works to repair washout/flood damage to and in the vicinity of the Hill Road just below the mid-station level.

The Summer Solstice is fast approaching once again, so it’s time to dust down the planks (they shouldn’t have gathered to much dust with the last day of lift served sliding being 5th May this year) for the mid-summer snow pilgrimage.

Since the 21st of June is a Saturday, the plan is Saturday on CairnGorm Mountain. We’re keeping an eye on Meall a’ Bhuiridh but the Main Basin has sadly had a bit of a shift with a return to less settled and wetter conditions. Final details and day will depend on the weather, if the Sunday is looking better then we may Switch, keep an eye on this blog and the Forum.

The intention at this stage is to meet in the Daylodge Bar on CairnGorm Mountain between 10 and 10.30am.

However the actual Summer Solstice is at 23.59hrs BST on Friday 20th.  If the weather is good a mid night slide and a camp or snow hole night may be in order, if interested drop a comment below or in the forum thread.

At least 200ft of vertical is still possible on the SE snow patches so enough to get a very respectable run in and build a good kicker.

Saturday 15th March 2008 - Dates in your diary now folks!

At the start of the week, I built and put live the website for the inaugural White Lady Challenge. The premise of the event is simple, to raise money for Disability Snowsport UK and/or the Cherished Uplift Fund’s White Lady Appeal by completing as many descents of the White Lady (or alternative ski run) as you can in one day.

Participants can choose whether to split their sponsorship money between the causes or donate to one or the other, and while the challenge its self should be great fun (if hard work for those taking it really seriously and aiming for an ‘Everest’ on the White Lady) there is a huge amount going off on CairnGorm Mountain on the day in Question - Saturday 15th March.

Up top in the Ptarmigan Bowl the Highlander Skier/Boarder freestyle event hits the ‘Gorms terrain park, meanwhile the Ski ‘n’ Boardroom has teamed up with numerous gear companies to bring in several boarding and ski manufactures to demo new 2009 boards and skis - and we’re working on getting more kit up the Gorm!

So you can undertake the White Lady Challenge while checking out the latest toys and if you want a break from bashing the White Lady, Ripcurl will have pro riders and instructors on hand to offer tips and advice on all things park!

In short it’s going to be one big fun day with stacks going on,  full details and to sign up for the White Lady Challenge visit the website at http://whiteladychallenge.org.uk .

The webcam system in the Ski Club Hut was restarted and all three webcams and the Weather Station were functioning as normal again as off early afternoon on Sunday.

The earlier mist eventually cleared, though it continued to come in over higher runs at times, but by dusk the skies were clear above Strathspey.

A couple of photos from the Club Hut Balcony looking out over Coire Cas and up the White Lady.

Looking out from the Hut Balcony over towards the Fiacaill.

The webcams and weather station at the Ski Club Hut on CairnGorm have been experiencing communication difficulties and the system appears to have gone down as a result.

Increased visitor numbers in the area could be contributing to less network availability. A site visit to check on the system will be undertaken on Sunday morning and if neccessary refresh rates will be turned down to try and help get regular images through.

This will be updated from CairnGorm on Sunday morning with further info.

Initial fears that the AWS at the SSC Hut had been damaged by the wind (it was recording wind speeds of 88mph shortly before loss of data - and the wind had been gusting to 165mph at the Summit) proved unfounded and the data feed restored shortly after 4pm on Saturday.

The AWS sensors are wired together but not currently hard-wired to the console/computer and thus the sensors are running on battery power. It looks as if the wild weather was shaking the temperature sensor so much that the batteries were failing to make contact all the time and after a certain number of drop outs the Console gives up attempts to communicate to preserve it’s own batteries.

Hard wiring the set-up will give more frequent wind measurements (thus we expect more accurate as the AWS stands a better chance of recording higher gusts) but as the system was primarily installed for temperature and humidity data an element of ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ makes me wary of changing the set-up at this stage.