Ski Weekend

Bumper snow in the NW of Scotland meant we headed to the East obviously!

mountain closed

reindeer action

But there was a reason for this... Loz fancied another go at ski touring and trying his battered old ski's
again.

happy chappy

Ciste run 1

I hadn't realised that he has quite a ski pedigree, racing as a child, but last year when he tried his free ski's he couldn't ski for toffee on them.. or at least that's what I heard.

man down

winter skills

He got given the touring ski's and skins, but hasn't got any boots, and there are only 2 places in the Highlands that hire boots - Aviemore and Braemar.

quite like this shot.. not sure what he's doing

Ciste run 2 - more aggressive!

Interestingly when he booked the boots to pick up from Aviemore, he enquired about hiring ski's, but they were cagey and reluctant to hire him ski's as the snow cover was quite patchy with limited base so they were very concerned about what state they would come back in.

So I sharpened his ski edges with earnest (and wine) the night before, and he decided to give them another go to see if a) he liked ski touring b) the ski's are okay or for the bin.

Plenty of tourers out

third time up

We headed to Cairngorm mountain. After a coffee skinned up M2 onto the shoulder, passing the reindeer herd on route.  The cloud was sitting on top of the hill most of the day so instead of heading over the back we went round to Ciste Gully. Brilliant snow and skiing with 4-5" of fresh snow on a hard base.

ice station zebra

now he starts to show off. fence jump start

There were lots of folk out, tourers, walkers struggling in the snow drifts, people on winter skills courses. It was great to be out. We did another lap of Ciste Gully, before skinning up a third time and skiing down through the ski run area.

brilliant snow - top half of mt

The Ptarmigan top station is clearly closed due to the funicular being off line this year so it was quiet at the top. They were running skiing only to the mid station, so the whole top half of the mountain was pretty untouched and the ski down in powder was brilliant.

the master (of disaster)

first tracks

We got down at 3.30pm, I wanted to skin up again for another run, but Loz didn't have the legs and wanted beer, so we called it a day. Oh and his ski's were pretty good now they have an edge so he's going to buy boots! He reported that they were excellent on piste, not bad off, but got a little buried in the powder as they are quite short and narrow! A great days skiing.

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With the forest looking snowy I thought that Abi might want to try xc skiing on the Sunday. So another non-lie in day saw us back in the Cairngorms. You can't pre-book xc ski's so we collected them at 9am, then went for coffee and a breakfast roll sit was snowing!

Setting off from the car near the hay meadow Abi looked a little scared and even though we have all been there its nerve racking see someone on ski's for the first time like (bambi trying to walk entered my head).

means business

They pre-cut 2 loops in the forest to follow and we went on the Southern one. Abi quickly improved, but didn't enjoy the down hill bits, which is reasonable as it's quite hard to stop on xc ski's (I fell on one decent).

It was nice cruising around the forest and Abi quickly got into the swing of things. On some down hills I would take off my ski's and run alongside her to give confidence and get used to the speed and her balance on the ski's.

checking the competition

On the second half of the loop she was fine and looked like a pro. A great 2 days skiing in the Highlands.

seasoned skier..