Feeling the heat recently? The summer solstice has been and gone, time to chill out with a BBQ in the snow and get some mid-summer turns in on CairnGorm Mountain!

While it's almost three months since the lifts shut for the season,with plenty of snow on winds from a Northerly quarter, the long lasting Southern Snowfields on CairnGorm Mountain are holding up much better than their Northerly counterparts. With the passing of the White Lady Chairlift went the ease of summer access to the Ciste Mhearaidh, so just as in the old days it was time to hike.

A 300m diagonal snowfield, gave a short but sweet run on lovely granular spring snow, with quite a firm crunchy base underneath, the snow gave excellent turns while being firm enough to easily hike back up. Altogether an excellent day, superb summer weather, sweet snow conditions, and great crack, oh and burnt burgers...

After a season in Kirkwood, these were my first turns in Scotland of 2005, are they the last of the season though? There are still some sizeable snowfields on Ben Macdui, so who's going to impress us with some July turns?

Thanks to Jamie, Sandy, George and Helen for additional photos and a great day out, and a big thank you to the girl in the Ptarmigan who lent us a lighter for the BBQ.....