UKC

Got up late, as you do on Boxing Day, to blue skies and apocalyptic forecasts for tomorrow and the day after. So I thought it had better be something quick today before it all goes pear-shaped again.

Zoomed up to Drumochter and headed up the only hillside that had sunshine on it, which happened to be the Boar. Then skied down it again.

Heavy going through thick cruddy snow; not very easy to make turns, or do anything really except drift sideways on a slanting contour, sit down, swap the skis over and drift sideways in the other direction. Well, I tried doing proper turns but I just fell over...

Enjoyable, in a perverse sort of way, but I can't say I'm sorry I didn't pay anything to do that. I wonder how Glen Shee was today? It was open apparently.

In reply to Tim Chappell:

Amazing sometimes how the effort/reward ratio can sometimes be so skewed yet you still come away happy! We made a 2m high snowball today on an otherwise uninteresting day out in the snow/porridge, which made the day entirely worthwhile!!

In reply to peebles boy:

Do you have photographic evidence?

It's too damn warm, is what. The snow would be excellent if it was 3 degrees colder. That's all we need. Grrr!

In reply to Tim Chappell:

Got photos of it at 1.5m, before I gave it a fateful "final push" down the hill and it split into 3 pieces...!!
Yep, a good drop in the freezing level would be very welcome right now. Instead, storm force winds again. Sigh.

In reply to Tim Chappell:

Looked like car to car touring though in Drumochter? If you'd gone a wee bit further north Carn na Caim looked really good and being higher the snow would have been good.

Much more snow there than Cairngorm.

In reply to Mike_Watson_99:

Didn't have time. I didn't leave the car till 1315.

In reply to Tim Chappell:

Toured up between the fences and on to Glas Maol this morning - continuous but variable snow from the car park and beyond but the visibility was appalling in that " am I facing uphill or downhill sort of way".

In reply to Slugain Howff:

Yeah, being able to see where you're going is prime... Like I said, I chose The Boar because it wasn't in the cloud. My original target was the Munro top on the side of A' Bhuidheanach Beag, but I sacked that when I saw what things were actually looking like, and also because I hadn't got up early enough.

I know what you mean about that weird feeling you get when you're skiing in a whiteout, and you can't actually tell whether you're going uphill or downhill, or indeed whether you're moving or stationary. I hate that. Feels disconcerting and dangerous to be that far out of your own reckoning.

In reply to Tim Chappell:

I've had to sit down on a slope before to make sure I had stopped moving.

This is another reason why ski touring in Scotland is such a fickle business. You need for there to be snow. You want it to be half decent snow (I'll settle for anything that isn't ice or crust) and ideally you'd like to see where you're going.

How often does all that come together?

Of course its magic when it does.

In reply to Tim Chappell:

thanks for the report tim. Is the ground still pretty warm or was there a chanvce for it to freeze before the snowa arrived?

In reply to Tim Chappell:
Glenshee didn't have much open but snow was good on the (two) open runs.

Great freshies off north through North East facing aspects of the cairnwell if you wert willing to skin for a bit and the sun came out around lunchtime making the skiing excellent. Glas Maol stayed in the cloud but I bet the Caenlochan bowl and lines off Cairn a Tuirc etc are excellent. Careful with the snowpack, mind.

I saw a few tourers heading up sunny side into the cloud who might have made it over to Glas Maol.

In reply to alasdair19:


Black mush under the porridge, I'm afraid. Needs a good sharp freeze

In reply to DaveHK:



Absolutely. And also, if you just go with the flow of whatever comes along, you can have a brilliant time in crap snow. Looks like several of us have today--I certainly did

In reply to Tim Chappell:

A friend of mine who lived in Aviemore some years ago had a neighbour who was known locally as The Bore of Badenoch.

In certain company therefore, stating something along the lines of "I had a great session up the BofB this afternoon.." could be taken the wrong way.

In reply to Aly:

Thanks, Aly. How much did your lift-pass cost you? That put me off going to the Shee, frankly--I couldn't see anything on the website about discounts. When they only have 6 out of 30 or whatever lifts open, I don't think full-price is on, really.

But anyway I could see the skiing was going to be pretty coarse--no point going to the Shee for conditions as rough as a badger's A, when you can get those for free by going somewhere you've never skied before. That was the thought-process, anyway

In reply to Removed User:

And they called his wife... ?

In reply to Tim Chappell:

Claybokie and Sunnyside (and the Dink-Dink) were the only tows open - the car park was half-full, and the queues were long... I strapped my skis to my rucksack and climbed the Cairnwell out of spite instead - had a good run down the Tiger!

It was the queues I objected to, not the ticket price, cause I have a season ticket this year!

In reply to Tim Chappell:

No such thing as bad snow, only bad skiers Went ski touring at Glenshee and thought the conditions were pretty decent. Cloud cleared as predicted by MWIS and there was plenty good snow if you picked the right aspects.

I guess the Boer of Badenoch is only 739m, so about the same height as the Cairnwell café at Glenshee. Never skied it - but can imagine it would be nice if you want a wee boxing day bimble from the road.

In reply to Haggis Trap:

>No such thing as bad snow, only bad skiers


I'm sure you're right, yet I'm a much better skier on good snow... on a bluebird day in the back corrie at Glas Maol I wedel like a boss

Agreed, Glenshee was a great place to tour yesterday and it was worth arriving early, starting with a skin up to the Cairnwell for totally fresh tracks down the Tiger which was in great condition. An elevenses bacon roll at the cafe readied us for our first climb to Carn Aosda and an amazing run out through Dubh Coire and a lunch stop. A climb back up to Carn Aosda warmed us up for a ski down the north ridge and back to the A93 via Cruinn Choire to the hitch hike back. Thanks whoever you were for stopping, much appreciated . Great snow to be found everywhere, some spells of perfect visibility and even the claggy bits were nothing like Scotland's claggiest offerings.

http://www.winterhighland.info/publicreports/index.php?50,3651

In reply to moffatross:

OK, maybe I wasn't high enough. But there wasn't time to get higher, except by going to Glen Shee. And I wanted to go somewhere else.

In reply to Tim Chappell:
Yep, Glenshee's extra elevation was worthwhile, as was being further East for the better viz. As for going somewhere else, even though we started somewhere familiar, the runs north of Aosda that we ended up skiing were new to us so it mostly felt like somewhere else.

P.S. If you're not aware, there are two detailed, short term, high resolution weather models publicly available which can sometimes help with decision making for things like cloud cover on a granular level. These are data sources used by the likes of MWIS and the Met Office to help create their mountain forecasts and I'm fairly sure they are both produced by the Met Office's own supercomputers. The 950 hPa temperatures on the NAE in particular can also give an indication of whether snow is likely to be soft or crusty at the 600-750 m ASL range, if you know what the preceding conditions were.

NAE 48 hour ... http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000...

EURO4 48 hour ... http://www.weatheronline.co.uk/cgi-bin/expertcharts?LANG=en&MENU=0000000000...

In reply to moffatross:

That's useful, Ross--thanks for going to that trouble.

In reply to Tim Chappell:

No worries. FWIW, if the A93 hadn't been open at 8 am, we'd have likely ended up in the same hills as you did, only 4 hours sooner.

In reply to moffatross:


Yes, that's correct.


Except when 950hPa is at sea level, as it is today in the west of Scotland! (The contours on the 950hPa height/temp charts tell you the height of the 950mb surface - units are in 10s of metres.)

In reply to moffatross:

OK, I'll give you a bell next time I'm going somewhere; you guys can break trail for me

In reply to Tim Chappell:

Ha ha !!

In reply to Mark Bull:

Yep, technically that's correct but not when it comes to making a best guess as to the snow surface temperature on a day you'd actually consider going skiing. In fact, on any day that 950 hPa values are approaching sea level, that'd also be a good indicator that it'd be a much, much better idea to spend your time on forums talking about being in the mountains when they weren't or when they won't be, rather than to consider being up one when they actually are. :-p