Another largely bluebird day on CairnGorm Mountain, in contrast to the Strath where layers of mist and fog formed under the inversion that is forming in the still air - giving spectacular vistas from the mountain.

The occasional bit of mist rolled up the hill, but by and large visibility was excellent under mostly blue skies. Generally great snow conditions with the recent accumulations giving a mix of machine and skier packed powder on the main trails, skier tracked powder in the less frequented corners of the snowsports area.

The new snow is overlying a hard packed base, so a few slick patches continue to appear later in the day mainly on more heavily trafficked areas, something to keep you on your toes! Generally such patches are grippy firm snow rather than icy.

The Top Basin is in fantastic shape with excellent cover of machine packed powder and tracked up fresh snow off the runs, esp the upper East Wall that sweeps above the Ptarmigan Tow.

One thing to note is that there is no direct access to the Cas Tow from the Gunbarrel, if you go down to the Gunbarrel you get filtered into the M1 queuing area due to the burn not being covered below this, cross the poma and drop down the bank to the mid-station for the Funicular. For the Cas Tow use the Zig Zags or the Fiacaill runs (access via the Fiacaill Traverse).

Fiacaill runs are pisted and were seeing a lot of traffic on Tuesday, really nice long cruisey blue for more confident intermediates. All Cas side mid-mountain runs complete, Lady and M1 good sport for more advanced riders, M1 SideTrack is rather thin though.

Staff were working on the West Wall Poma in the afternoon and the M2 and Overyonder have been pisted and all being well it will hopefully open during Wednesday.

Ridable to the Daylodge via the Carpark Run / Burnside, but cover is thin and baseless, typical early season stuff below mid-station so go slow and carefully.