January 2001 was dominated by high pressure, bringing many days of blue-sky weather to the Cairngorms, however despite the settled overhead conditions it was often windy! A ferocious Hogmanay storm, with very wet snow, filled gully lines and fenced runs with soggy wet snow which froze like concrete during the early hours of New Years day. This frozen wet snow formed the base (with even the Ciste Gully burn filled in) that set up the 2001 season to be the Epic it turned out to be.

However there was not much in the way of snow during January 2001, hence the reason it’s regarded as having got off to a slow start. January was characterised by very narrow runs, with little snow around, but what there was, was superb dry packed powdery snow!!