:: Winterhighland // General Situation // Scottish Ski & Winter Activity Report

The Summer Solstice is only days away, so this Saturday is the informal get together for the annual Winterhighland Mid-Summer Slide and kicker session on CairnGorm Mountain.

Strictly speaking the Summer Solstice occurs at 5.45am (GMT) on Sunday this year, but Saturday is chosen in order to give the fall back of Sunday in the event of poor weather.

There is a thread in the forum and photos of the remaining snow fields on CairnGorm in the Pix from the Slopes. The plan of action is:

Where: Ciste Mhearaidh, CairnGorm Mountain.
When: Saturday 20th June.
Meet: 11am in the PTARMIGAN RESTAURANT.

Hope to see you on the mountain on Saturday. If however you are heading elsewhere in search of mid-summer snow to slide on, please take a camera and post up your photos in the Public or Back Country Reports. All photos of remaining snow greatly help academic studies of snow patch survival and persistence.

:: General Situation

Looking back the season drew to a close with classic late season T-shirt skiing to round off the 2009 season. In Scotland don't put the toys away in March, let alone February!

In typical Scottish Weather style, May saw a reversal of the exceptionally mild April, with more frosts and hill snow falling in May than during April, indeed tourers notched up fresh tracks from the Summit to below the foot of the Goose T-bar at Nevis Range as we headed into the mid May period. (See photos in the Public Reports). April 2009 turned out to be the third warmest on record for Scotland, though not as warm as the record breaking 2007 which is ranked 1st. During the month of April only 2 short overnight air frosts were recorded at 2500ft on CairnGorm Mountain in stark contrast to April 2008 which saw the best conditions of the season.

However as May drew to a close a real dose of Summer arrived in the Highlands, a South to South East wind giving a marked fohen effect giving the Highlands some of the warmest days of the year so far in the UK.

Thus our Glenshee walkabout on Saturday 30th May, with Dr Adam Watson organised by Firefly (Ian Cameron) could not have been better timed weather wise, as participants pulled into the Glenshee car park under a perfect blue sky and blazing sunshine. Organised in part as a thank you to those who have contributed to the monitoring of summer snow patches through reports and photos on this site over recent years, the day was a great success and truly fascinating thanks to Dr Adam Watson's unsurpassed knowledge of the Cairngorms.

See photos from the day out at Glenshee in the Pix from the Slopes and of particular interest to skiers and boarders is an account of the talk from and Q&A session with Glenshee Manager Willie Meston which is in the Blog at www.winterhighland.info/blog .

Into June, but not everyone has put their planks away yet. The snowfields over the back of CairnGorm Mountain have seen some turns in last few days while out West, gullies have been getting torn up on Ben Nevis, indeed even some Chamonix based skiers were hitting Tower Gully.

However the blazing temperatures at the end of May didn't last, a cold front swept down from the North and some parts of the Highlands and Moray facing into the North wind saw single digit maximums for early June, almost a 20°c drop in temperature. Thus ome fresh tracks were laid on the SE snow fields on CairnGorm in the early part of June!

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:: New Nevis Range MTB website

Nevis Range launched a new Mountain Bike web-site to coincide with the UCI MTB world cup during the first weekend of June. Check it out at http://bike.nevisrange.co.uk .

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:: New Lift Served Downhill at the Lecht & Nevis

The Lecht have opened the first of their two downhill mountain bike tracks with uplift provided by the Snowy Owl Chairlift giving around 400ft of vertical descent on the new blue trail. A more challenging red trail is due to open during the Summer and on both trails features can be by-passed so you can choose the difficulty of your descent and work your way up.

Nevis Range is also building a new red graded downhill track to compliment the existing black World Cup & World Championship track and this is due to open towards the end of the month (June).

Nevis Range update their report daily with the Gondola status and latest weather, this is also available via our WAP service.

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:: Legal Downloads....

At CairnGorm Mountain remember it is now possible to download on the Funicular Railway even if you made your own way up, thus the ultra keen snow patch chasing summer skiers now only have to walk one way, up!

Over at Glenshee the Cairnwell Chairlift will be open daily from around mid June throughout the Summer holiday period and the roadside cafe is open daily.

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:: Winterhighland Webcams

Our mid-mountain cameras on CairnGorm providing views from near the foot of the White Lady at www.winterhighland.info/testcam .

Mountain Spirit host our Aviemore Webcam which looks down Grampian Road in the direction of the Ski Road. See www.winterhighland.info/cams/aviemore .

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:: Ski Area Contact Numbers & Websites

Glencoe: 0871 871 9929 www.glencoemountain.com (online tickets)
Nevis Range: 01397 705825 www.nevisrange.co.uk
Lecht: 01975 651440 www.lecht.co.uk
CairnGorm: 01479 861261 www.cairngormmountain.co.uk (online tickets)
Glenshee: 013397 41320 www.ski-glenshee.co.uk (online tickets)

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