Back Home after pulling out from the hill at 11.00am, The ploughs were struggling even to keep a single track on the down road. The wind was not really the problem but the volume of snow falling out of the sky, i knew we should not have tried to wire up the cannon this week.
Anyway the rothiemurchus official weather station is reporting 75cm in my back garden now, oil tank is buried, soon to be followed by the trampoline and it is still thumping down. After this mornings frolics i need spotlights on my roof bars as going up the glen the snow was above my headlights, if anyone from Volvo reads this i could do with an upgrade or raising kit after getting bellied in the down road.
Up the hill there is between 1.5 to 2 metres of fresh powder on the lower slopes and zig zags and probably more further up, the snow is level with the top of the tunnel and track buried in the usual places. I would also imagine there will be avalanche risk in places we have not seen before.
If the forecasted winds materialise who knows when we will get open… July Galcier skiing anyone?
Cheers
Colin

Another challenging week for the team and machinery again, i think today is the first time i,ve had my skis on in over two weeks. Blizzard conditions hit us again on Wednesday and Thursday bringing everything to a standstill till the wind dropped. We spent all day yesterday getting the down road blown and widened and a big squad getting the track, top building and some of the uplift dug out again, i think since the initial storm we must have shifted in excess of 80,000 tons of snow. The link road will be left for the time being so we will have two way traffic on the down road. We were hoping to get the 100 groomer down to help groom a track for our Husky freinds but the weather prevented that, hope it all goes well for them. There has been a few comments from people of why we cant plough the roads all night to keep open but the simple fact is if you cant see where you are driving you cant plough the roads. I,ll see if i can get digital thermal imaging implants into the drivers heads for next season:0). Even if the roads were open most of the days would have been lost to the wind anyway. On average we expect to lose 20 odd days stormbound a season.
Today should pan out in to a good day, we have had 4 or 5 lifts open from 7.45 and hope to get them all up and running. There is fantastic cover on the whole hill with some great sport on offer, although there are some icy patches around and snow drifts in places i,ve never seen before.
Cheers
Colin

There have been posts on other sites that we are requesting volunteers to come and help us with the digging, this is not the case. We have arranged for members of the Cairngorm Mountain Rescue Team, The Ski School,and G2 Outdoors ltd to assist us. We can not safely supervise members of the public in this operation but we appreciate the offer of people wanting to help. Our road and car park situation is not yet at a state where we can manage the public safely and also concentrate on the operation to get open for snowsports.The snow gates at Glenmore will remain closed.
Thanks for your understanding
Colin

Good News and maybe bad news for the New Year, Today we have been skiing in awesome powder, those of us who could get here that is with about 2 feet of fresh pow in places and the Patrol ,Ski School and overnight campers having it all until around midday when the road opened.
Bad News - MWIS latest is forecasting heavy overnight snow with blizzards and whiteouts accross the region tomorrow
Keeping the team back tonight to blow the roads wider and get all the carparks clear then back in at 6.00 am tomorrow. but it might all be in vain if the forecast is correct.
Wait and see i suppose.
Anyway Happy New Year to all.
Cheers
col
ps sorry about the amount of snow on the lower slopes, we forgot to switch the snow cannon off last night:o)

I think the Christmas Snow Cannon fairie took pity on the lonely little snow cannon sitting at Cairngorm and decided to send tons of snow to the Mountain so he did not have to work over Christmas.
As a result we now have great snowcover on the hill and light winds forecast over the next few days so we hope you all have a great Christmas Day and hope to see you on the slopes again on Boxing Day and over the holidays
We had a look at the Ridge track but probably need a little bit of drifting to get it going, we should have the Sheiling Poma on for Boxing Day. We had a mishap with the West Wall Poma rope with a couple of strands being broken, but the boys are working flat out to splice in a repair and it will be up and running as soon as we can. There is still some great first tracks to be found off piste and the main trails have great cover, with a great run down the M2 and Day Lodge
We still intend to have the cannon fired up soon to see how it performs and see where it can best be utilised.
I hope you all have a great Christmas and New Year and it is a great season for all the Ski Centres
Cheers
Colin

Snow Cannon arrived this morning and one of the boys is bringing Glenshee’s portable pump over today as well so hopefully over the next few days we can get it set up and start playing around with it, however latest forecasts are suggesting blizzard conditions and white out conditions over the next couple of days so we may have more than enough real snow to deal with. I will keep you posted on our progress.
It has been snowing steadily to day putting some fresh powder on the hard base we have had of late and the skiing/boarding has been pretty good although there are still some icy areas around
We will be in from 7.30 tomorrow to assess things so keep an eye on the website for updates
Colin

Hi pressure over us for a few days by the looks of things and it is a cracking day today. The snow is pretty firm over the hill but there is still good skiing/boarding on offer for all abilities. Forecasts suggest maybe snow coming in again next week so we are hopeful we should have an offering over the holidays, which is crucial in seeing us through the quiter January period.
A few developments to mention. Since our NASSA conference in September and meeting the Iceland boys and the Sufag rep’s in between whisky tastings, we started looking at the idea of getting a fan gun on loan/lease for the season on a trial basis. After doing a lot of research and picking Graham and David’s brains at Glenshee and Tosh at the Lecht i got the go ahead to get the gun for the season. As i said it is for a trial and to get it here and play about with it and find out the logistics of manpower, water and power and such like. It should be shipped from Austria on Friday so will keep you informed when it gets here. The model is a Compact Power Automatic and you can see the spec on the Sufag website.
Also today we have an engineer on site carrying out a survey for hydro turbines in the burn that comes past the Daylodge, if it is feasible the company installs the system free of charge and we get some free elecy. I will also keep you posted how this project develops.
If you have all finished Christmas shopping get up here this weekend for some great Mountain Weather, if the forecasts are correct that is.
Cheers
Colin

0930 update -
Conditions today. -1degree’s C, Visibility at the top 200m, Snowing at the top and virtually no wind. Opening the Ciste & the M1 poma. M1 piste is in great condition as is the traverse and 105. Hoping to open M1 poma around 11am, engineers are working on it.
Gunbarrel is closed at the moment as pisters are working.

Please note all season tickets have been sent out and not at the ticket office.

The boys and machines(Quad, Kubota, Fast Track,070 and 100 and skidoo) battled through some drifts on the 105 and Traverse today to get contractors up to complete shutdown work on the train and Tunnel Door. Adam took me in the wee machine(PB100) around the top bowl and it looks like we could get the Ciste and Ptarmigan on for the weekend with a fair bit of dozing and patching. However the forecast looks quite windy so will have to wait and see. We hope to get the bars on the top tows tomorrow but again the forecasted blizzards at that level might hinder things, also with another dump of drifting snow, skiing to the middle might not be out of the question. Keep an eye on the Blog and Website tomorrow for more information. Coire dog was out in front of one of the machines guiding it up the Traverse so he was well rewarded with a banger or two later on
Colin

With our new Mercedez (plough not polar bear) having its first outing today thought it was time to start up the Winter Blog again. Thanks to Ruari for the summer blog keeping everybody updated on all things bright and beautiful.
I am now up the hill full time looking after theTechnical side of the operation and the Winter Operations. We are now nearing the end of our annual maintenance on the Train which involved,Dopplemayer and Frey technicians doing their annual service and inspection, we are also replacing the brake pipes to stainless steel and doing overhauls on the brake packs and hydraulics. The maintenance on the tows has gone well with a new motor installed on the Ptarmigan Tow. All the return wheels are now dropped every year and bearings inspected. three were sent away for refurbishment and new bearings fitted. The rest of the tows have had their yearly overhaul and the Cas has had new lifting frames installed on the towers. We have not put any bars on yet but they are ready. We try and wait as long as possible to put the bars on at the top to prevent any unnecessary de-icing and ropes off with the wind. We have had a few gusts of 150mph at the tunnel mouth today and some heavy snow showers.

“Rok” concrete specialists were on site for a couple of months carrying out structural repairs inside the tunnel and on the funicular structure, they also recast the Ptarmigan drive unit structure and some tower bases on the Ciste and Ptarmigan, bad weather has prevented any further work but they will be back in the spring to complete their workscope.

There is snow forecast above 800m over the next few days and low temps over the weekend so that first slide might not be too far away.
Keep an eye on the blog.
Colin