A wild morning with blowing snow and hill fog reducing visibility with just the Funicular open after a slightly delayed start, gave way to a bluebird afternoon, but still blowing with a strong SE wind.
The wind direction changing allowed the Ptarmigan Tow and M1 Poma to open, but strong to Gale Force SE winds again forecast for Tuesday and exact direction will be critical for the tows given the high gust speeds expected - so check in the morning.
The big news was the opening of the M2 and Daylodge route from the top to the Base Station giving a 2.5km blue run. Unlike the occasional days this was officially open last year when it was a rock garden it's in pretty decent shape, the new rail fencing is proving to not just help protect the snow in thaws, but to be able to trap snow effectively at much higher wind speeds. Useful for an area of the mountain known from the earliest walkers and climbers as the Windy Ridge!
The Cas Gunbarrel has improved and filled out a bit more, the not such good news is that much of the snow came from the Upper Cas with the mid-section scoured out leaving really only the T-bar uptrack as the run, so we are still some way from getting the Cas T-bar running (unless someone has a wicket sense of humour).
Thanks to Les for the photos from today. If you have been out please spare a moment to post photos to the
Public Reports or send photos to pix2017@winterhighland.info .