what...snow, that's so spot on ... you've made some absolutely intuitive observations & really clarified some opportunities for Scottish skiing in my mind. Thanks
Just one observation that helps build on what you said and might give some of the naysayers something to relate to. I used to go mountain biking all over England & Wales when I lived down in Northamptonshire. Solo or group missions, we'd often stay away for a long weekend in a B&B near the Forestry Commision made routes in Wales, then ride uphill and bomb down the singletracks or for a daytrip, just drive to say the Peaks, pick a rough route and ride. Cycling technical routes 20 or 30 days a year on my trusty Schwinn 4-Banger, I got to be relatively handy with my bottom behind the saddle, although I was always much better on the uphill than the downhill compared to some of the mental folk I rode with.
Anyway, the point is, that if someone had told us that we were just riding poo-poo routes, that the trails we rode were too unpredictable to make them worthwhile (quite often we'd arrive in monsoons / gales & ride eroded singletracks flowing like rivers), that you couldn't make a fun weekender out of it & that mountain biking wasn't worth it unless you were Welsh and best just go to Morzine where they've got chairlifts, we'd have just ignored them because we knew better.
So in that example, the issue was just as Winterhighland said ... perception and commitment. Most people don't think of skiing in the same way as mountain biking in which a weekend break in the UK is considered the norm for any DH biking enthusiast ... Maybe we need to get a few of those mountain bikers onto Scottish snow, perhaps by promoting the UK's skiing opportunities in the UK's mountain biking mags.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
what...snow wrote:
Quote:
Of course your advice excludes a very large number of people.
There should be enough skiers among the 25 million to give plenty of custom to 5 small ski areas but way too many are put off by an outdated perception that when they go, the weather will inevitably be terrible and there won't be any snow.
Exactly, there are plenty of people who live close enough and are flexible enough to go when the snow is good. So why do the evangelists get all hissy when people from London say that Scotland is not the place for them because they can't really book in advance and they live too far to got up there for the odd daytrip?
The answer is that they just don't want to see anything negative, even if it's fair comment based on personal preference.
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
PJSki, perhaps if you actually read and tried to take in what is being posted you wouldn't come across as quite so obtuse?
Quote:
people from London say that Scotland is not the place for them because they can't really book in advance
Plenty of climbers do in winter and indeed my point a couple of pages ago (and in the follow up thread started) was making the very point that London is one of the easiest places to get to Highland Scotland from in the Southern third of the UK, because of the overnight sleeper. The fares I quoted were not advance fares, so it is certainly possible to hit the Scottish Mountains for a weekend (or your days off mid week if your lucky) from London, with outlandishly advanced booking time of Friday afternoon from work!
It's not for everyone fair enough, weekend/short breaks with that distance to travel is not for everyone irrespective of whether you head North or South from the London area, but it is a genuine option for some to get 2 days of riding in without time off work and without dealing with airports, transfers, car hire and you get to offset the transport cost against 2 nights accommodation without silly o'clock travel times or only half ski days. Like I said it's not for everyone, but that does not make it 'cr@p'!
When you've had the experience of being at a trade fair in Inverness in early summer 2007 and you get people coming up, stopping and looking at a powerpoint slide show and asking where/whens that, and you say CairnGorm winter just past, and the response from at least a 1/4 of the people who went on to identify them as skiers was along the lines of, 'oh but CairnGorm didn't have enough snow to open last winter'..... It makes you wonder if that is the local perception what it is like in the Central lowlands, let alone beyond. When you have your eyes opened like that to how big this problem is and you've seen the damage it has done and comprehend the damage that could be wrecked if the snowsports industry closed up shop, then you damn well would take a hissy fit, when ill informed drivel like this gets spouted:
Quote:
to its demise as the snow stopped falling
It's not just about Scotland, I posted on several occasions last winter in reply to arm chair experts who sat at home telling everyone how cr@p the snow in the Alps was without actually having been.... People need to understand that spreading total cr@p about conditions being cr@p does real and genuine harm.
PJSki, perhaps if you actually read and tried to take in what is being posted you wouldn't come across as quite so obtuse?
Quote:
people from London say that Scotland is not the place for them because they can't really book in advance
Plenty of climbers do in winter and indeed my point a couple of pages ago (and in the follow up thread started) was making the very point that London is one of the easiest places to get to Highland Scotland from in the Southern third of the UK, because of the overnight sleeper. The fares I quoted were not advance fares, so it is certainly possible to hit the Scottish Mountains for a weekend (or your days off mid week if your lucky) from London, with outlandishly advanced booking time of Friday afternoon from work!
It's not for everyone fair enough, weekend/short breaks with that distance to travel is not for everyone irrespective of whether you head North or South from the London area, but it is a genuine option for some to get 2 days of riding in without time off work and without dealing with airports, transfers, car hire and you get to offset the transport cost against 2 nights accommodation without silly o'clock travel times or only half ski days. Like I said it's not for everyone, but that does not make it 'cr@p'!
When you've had the experience of being at a trade fair in Inverness in early summer 2007 and you get people coming up, stopping and looking at a powerpoint slide show and asking where/whens that, and you say CairnGorm winter just past, and the response from at least a 1/4 of the people who went on to identify them as skiers was along the lines of, 'oh but CairnGorm didn't have enough snow to open last winter'..... It makes you wonder if that is the local perception what it is like in the Central lowlands, let alone beyond. When you have your eyes opened like that to how big this problem is and you've seen the damage it has done and comprehend the damage that could be wrecked if the snowsports industry closed up shop, then you damn well would take a hissy fit, when ill informed drivel like this gets spouted:
Quote:
to its demise as the snow stopped falling
It's not just about Scotland, I posted on several occasions last winter in reply to arm chair experts who sat at home telling everyone how cr@p the snow in the Alps was without actually having been.... People need to understand that spreading total cr@p about conditions being cr@p does real and genuine harm.
Stop selectively quoting. This is what I said it full:
Quote:
So why do the evangelists get all hissy when people from London say that Scotland is not the place for them because they can't really book in advance and they live too far to go up there for the odd daytrip?
Note the last bit, which you seem to agree with:
Quote:
It's not for everyone fair enough, weekend/short breaks with that distance to travel is not for everyone irrespective of whether you head North or South from the London area, but it is a genuine option for some to get 2 days of riding in without time off work and without dealing with airports, transfers, car hire and you get to offset the transport cost against 2 nights accommodation without silly o'clock travel times or only half ski days. Like I said it's not for everyone, but that does not make it 'cr@p'!
If you book in advance, the greater likelihood is that you will encounter cr@p weather (that was the only thing I called cr@p) and poor snow.
As someone who learnt to ski in Scotland some facts:-
I spent a 2 week holiday staying in Kingussie, for 5 days there was no access to the slopes due to snow and high winds. When they did open the fresh snow had been blown away and we were back to the "firm base" ie. ice.
Of the 20 odd weekends that I travelled from Merseyside to the Scottish resorts having first called the info line on an Edinburgh number and getting the "fresh snow on a firm base" message I know that for sure I did not put skis on for 5 of theses weekends and another 5 when I got 1 or part of 1 day skiing. I do however remember 2 good days ie. sun and good snow, but the reason I remember them was because they where so rare!
To ski in Scotland you need to be within an hour of the slopes, because that is how long it takes for conditions to change dramatically!
Those are facts.
Yes, this also happened to me. Went all the way up to GS one Friday, on the back of excellent reports, only to find in the morning that the wind had removed all the new snow, leaving a nasty base. Similar condition also prevailed in the other ski areas. Won't ever risk that again.
Last edited by You'll need to Register first of course. on Mon 24-10-11 21:03; edited 1 time in total
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
And the Met Office got whupped afterwards and haven't let the chance of the merest puff of wind go unwarned since. Even in the outer reaches of the Great Empire known as Scotland. I think I may have posted something along these lines before. Once bitten, twice shy is all very well but forecasting and technology have moved forward in the last 24 years.
About 25 years years ago I went skiing in France and hated it. Couldn't read the menus, no one spoke English, couldn't get Radio 4 and the toilet's were just holes in the ground! The beer was all cold and gassy. Didn't even come in pints! Imagine!!! Haven't been back since. If that's abroad, those furriners are welcome to it
After all it is free
After all it is free
Good to see a nice healthy debate and range of views! You can guess where I stand on the matter.
It made me smile as last winter when we reported on PlanetSKI about the good snow and numbers in Scotland we had emails accusing us of being the PR mouthpiece of the Scottish ski industry.
Who was it that said "You can please some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time but you can't please all the people all the time"?
Just for clarity I did not actually write the original story on PlanetSKI. It is a short news summary of the findings of the lengthy 80-page Scottish Snowsport Strategic Review and not a personal blog, though it obviously contains a viewpoint. We did not circulate it to Natives or anyone else as PlanetSKI is a web site and not a news agency. Natives just saw it and put it up, which is fine by us as we have some good friends there (though Iain and Becky have now moved on.)
As content editor of PlanetSKI I did though check the story before it went live (so I fully support it) and I have read the main parts of the Strategic report, though a 80 pages I simply have not got time to read it in its entirety.
I am not quite sure what a story written by a PlanetSKI reporter about the future of skiing in scotland has to so with the fact that I am writing the history of BASI???
My 15-year old daughter is currently nagging me to get off the internet as we are in Saas-Fee for a couple of days and she wants to go skiing on the 4 or 5 runs open here. Snow has fallen, the sun is out and the season has begun. I wish you all a great winter and I dearly hope I get the chance to ski in Scotland again and on many occasions in the future.
BTW Derek Brightman was BASI License Number One, not Frith Finlayson, and it is whisky not whiskey.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
JAMES COVE,
Quote:
de·mise (d-mz)
n.
1.
a. Death.
b. The end of existence or activity; termination:
Personally I couldn't give two hoots if people want to criticize Scottish skiing or decide its not for them. What I do object too (and will raise hell about) is journalists telling us about the demise of Scottish skiing or claiming that the industry is a permanent decline with only one possible conclusion.
The fact is that Scottish skier number are actually static in recent years - about 200K skier days per winter since the mid 1990s. People forget there has actually been a decent chunk of investment in Scottish skiing over the last decade (Cairngorm Funicular, new Lecht base buildings & Snowy Owl Chairlift, Nevis Range MTB world cup trails & Great Glen Chairlift, New chairlift & Piste bashers at Glenshee etc). Since the very beginning Scottish snow has always been variable - what the resorts really need to do is get the message that it still snows in Scotland and also how people can make the most of it ?
Enjoy your trip to Saas-Fee - I am jealous.
Hopefully see you on the slopes of Scotland again.
I'm sure all will be delighted to know that the club have rediscovered the country formerly known as Other (Please Specify) and it is now included in their survey as "Scotland" - wherever the hell that is.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
I saw this thread with interest as I hadn't even thought of skiing in Scotland before.
Why? I just had a pre-conception that the skiing isn't that good and the snow not that reliable. reading through this it seems I was wrong to a degree although the piste maps of the main places look like the runs are a bit limited and unlike the alpine resorts the idea of ski in / ski out doesn't seem relevant as it looks to me like accommodation and skiing aren't mixed. As I said I know nothing other than this thread and googling the piste maps about Scottish Skiing.
Would I go from the South East of the UK? probably not - unless I was nearby for work.
To drag me away from the Alps, I would want:
- better snow reliability than that described here
- better weather
- better integrated accommodation / skiing than I have discovered through google
- easier transport. Coming from the south east, driving to the alps is easier than driving to Scotland. Just driven back yesterday overnight from Val Thorens at legal(ish) speeds through France that would have racked up a lot of points going through the UK - and going for tens of miles on the main autoroutes without seeing another car.
It sounds to me that the original report seems fairly factual and Scottish skiing would be Ok if you lived closeby but not worth a holiday based around.
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
^ Do you think all UK skiers live in Southern England ?
That is the whole crux of my objection to the original uniformed Planet Ski article
You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
I don't disagree with you at all. If the Scottish resorts were just a couple of hours away they would be high up on our radar. As it is, it is easier to get to the Alps than Scotland for us, so I have never thought of it as a location.
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Quote:
easier transport. Coming from the south east, driving to the alps is easier than driving to Scotland. Just driven back yesterday overnight from Val Thorens at legal(ish) speeds through France that would have racked up a lot of points going through the UK - and going for tens of miles on the main autoroutes without seeing another car.
If you drove overnight to Scotland you wouldn't see that many other cars either. Some of the comments I hear about how difficult Scotland is to get to from the SE, you'd imagine it was several days away on unsealed roads north of Watford!
With the M6 Northern Extension having finally closed the 'Cumberland Gap' on the A74 to the start of the A74(M) on the Scottish border, it's continuous Motorway from the M25 to Dunblane, and continuous dual carriageway to Perth if carrying on North. This year's completion of the M74 across Glasgow to the M8 has vastly improved journey times on the Northern M74, M73 and M80/M8 even at busier times, the M80 upgrade just recently opened has also made further improvements in journey times from Glasgow to Stirling.
Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Winterhighland wrote:
This year's completion of the M74 across Glasgow to the M8 has vastly improved journey times on the Northern M74, M73 and M80/M8 even at busier times, the M80 upgrade just recently opened has also made further improvements in journey times from Glasgow to Stirling.
Not 'arf !! I use the M80 upgrade & the M74 extension several times weekly since they opened a few months ago & there just aren't any motorway bottlenecks left any more through Glasgow & the Central Belt heading north. Bottom line is that for someone travelling by car from The South, I reckon that once they've passed say Manchester on the M6, they should now get an unimpeded motorway journey, even in rush hour to within an hour or so of Aviemore, Glenshee or Glencoe.
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Quote:
Coming from the south east, driving to the alps is easier than driving to Scotland.
Is this true? I've seen it written on here many times but the statistics don't seem to validate it.
From central London, it's 480 miles to Glencoe, 490 to Glenshee, 510 to Nevis, 530 to Cairngorm. But it's 710 miles to Val Thorens. The PdS, Grand Massif and Chamonix are a bit closer, about 650 miles but viaMichelin quotes costs >£80 more each way (mostly tolls, but extra petrol and wear, doesn't include the ferry/tunnel) and at least 2hrs more driving, each way. Plus the channel crossing. Doesn't sound easier.
Quote:
and going for tens of miles on the main autoroutes without seeing another car.
Sounds just like the M74. See a few lorries, but you get 2 more lanes to pass them in.
Quote:
the idea of ski in / ski out doesn't seem relevant
When you're driving somewhere for a short break it doesn't seem relevant, so I don't understand why it's a negative in this context?
Quote:
To drag me away from the Alps
The skiing in Scotland is not a replacement for the Alps and shouldn't be seen as such. The vastness of ski areas like the 3Vs, PdS, etc and the huge vertical descent, continuously steep off-piste routes at Chamonix are world-leading. But for people in the UK, it takes a while to get there. Too long for an ad hoc weekend.
The way the ski areas are laid out is not like the Alps, American ski areas are a closer comparison. There isn't the split of on and off piste. It's either in bounds, or it's out of bounds (except Nevis, where they've complicated things a bit more). In bounds everywhere is fair game for anyone, but going out of bounds puts some onus on the skier to have the right knowledge, experience and equipment (but not like the USA where going out of bounds results in lift pass removal, there is just the one bowl of great looking off piste where there are many warning signs telling you to not enter at risk of losing your pass). Yes, the ski areas are all small, but there's plenty of good skiing.
Scotland is a cheaper, more convenient alternative that gets dismissed by people for a variety of reasons, most of which I think are erroneous, misguided or out of date. The weather isn't great every day and the lifts are mostly a bit rubbish but for quiet, steep, challenging, lift accessed skiable terrain, Scotland is actually pretty good. For cruising round mountains on easy blue groomers, stopping at little cafes, it isn't. So whether it's worthwhile or not is your decision, but at least you now know it exists.
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
I have driven to Scotland - although only to Glasgow and Edinburgh - many times for work and the experience is not nice at all. Motorways are clogged certainly as you say until past Manchester on one side or Sheffield on the other, with newcastle being another holdup area. Lots of speed cameras dotted around the place as well.
From Calais it is around 600 miles to the Alps and there is virtually no traffic in comparison. The legal speed limit is 83 which is a useful starting guideline. Over the last twenty years I have driven the journey to the alps or sof many times - and in my experience - yes the journey is much easier and also in my experience quicker if you get the tunnel timing right.
emwmarine, I have driven to the Alps, from your end of the UK.
It was the longest, most stressful and soul-destroying car journey I've ever made & was to St Jean D'Arves via the Chunnel about 8 years ago. Even though we used all the fastest recommended toll roads, we found horrendous queues for most of the 2nd half of our journey.
I vowed never, ever to do anything like it again. We left my sister's place in Hertfordshire before 5.00 a.m. and didn't arrive until 23.00.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Fans of Harry Hill know "there's only one way to find out"... the test would be to leave, say, Trafalgar Square at noon on a friday, one head north for Aviemore and the other south to say Chamonix and see who is at the bar with a fizzy one first. I reckon Aviemore quicker by a few hours.
According to http://www.viamichelin.com and using the closest Scottish / Alpine resorts of Glencoe & Morzine.
London to Morzine
Costs
184.61 EUR
Toll 71.00 EUR | Petrol 104.05 EUR | Road tax 9.56 EUR
Time
10h00 of which 08h10 on motorways
Distance
998 km of which 940 km on motorways
London to Glencoe
Costs
94.88 EUR
Toll 6.34 EUR | Petrol 78.98 EUR
Time
08h14 of which 06h27 on motorways
Distance
780 km of which 660 km on motorways
However.... there are 5 million people living in Scotland (something Planet Ski forgot).
And another 10-15 million living north of Manchester - the fact London is a long way from mountains (north or south) is actually irelevant to Scottish skiing. The vast majority of people skiing in Scotland are local weekend oportuinists who travelled 3 hrs or less.
Last edited by You'll need to Register first of course. on Thu 27-10-11 8:39; edited 1 time in total
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
moffatross wrote:
It was the longest, most stressful and soul-destroying car journey I've ever made
February half-term by any chance? I've driven to the Alps quite a lot and only ever had two bad journeys: one on a February half term when an accident in a tunnel led to a huge traffic jam, and another was driving back to Calais when the was a snowstorm across most of France. Every other journey has been easy and incident free, with motorways significantly quieter than anything you experience in the UK (and that's during the daytime, driving through the night seems a bit mad to me).
I've driven to Aviemore once (although not in the ski season), and, as usual, the M6 was grim getting past Birmingham, and a bit sluggish past Manchester but other than that was pretty straightforward, with some very pleasant scenery at times. For me it's probably 90-120 minutes shorter journey to get to Aviemore, but once you're committing a whole day to driving a couple of hours extra or less doesn't seem to be a big factor.
Last edited by Then you can post your own questions or snow reports... on Thu 27-10-11 1:36; edited 1 time in total
After all it is free
After all it is free
emwmarine wrote:
Manchester on one side or Sheffield on the other, with newcastle being another holdup area.
If your traveling from the South of England (indeed most of England) to the vast majority of Scotland you shouldn't be going anywhere near Newcastle.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
Bode Swiller wrote:
I reckon Aviemore quicker by a few hours.
And the rest from my unhappy experience.
rob@rar wrote:
moffatross wrote:
It was the longest, most stressful and soul-destroying car journey I've ever made
February half-term by any chance?
No, 27th December. I wouldn't have thought it'd be a problem.
Winterhighland wrote:
from the South of England (indeed most of England) to the vast majority of Scotland you shouldn't be going anywhere near Newcastle.
Yep, apart from people heading to Scotland that live in Newcastle, if you're heading north on the A1 destined for the Highlands, not turning left onto the A66 at Scotch Corner is totally bonkers.
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
Weeeeel, I have to say as someone (maybe one of the only ones ) who commutes reasonably regularly from Bristol, to Aviemore my longest journey was probably around 9/10 hours with bad road works in the Midlands and a crash, the quickest time has been around 7 hours (with one very brief toilet stop and a fuel stop at Perth) - this, as Winterhighland says above was taking advantage of the newly opened stretches of motorway this summer in Scotland which seemed to make a hell of a difference. The worst spots are, as others have mentioned, between B'ham and the Manchester/L'pool turn offs - nasty traffic and drivers who don't seem to understand the fact you're supposed to move between lanes, not slow everyone down and try to block anyone who might be capable of overtaking you! Past this it's plain sailing (and mostly great views) all the way to Perth where the last bit on the A9 can be a bit of a pain if stuck behind lorries or holiday drivers but the views are great
Never driven to the Alps but have flown a good few times and personally I prefer the drive to Scotland but horses for courses as they say! Personally I think at worst all I can say is it's potentially no more hassle than driving to Europe what with ferries/chunnel and all the rest of it (although having done the ferry in the summer that is painless in comparison with flying) although of course if you are in the deep south east your perspective may be different given you don't have the extra 2 hours or so to get to a channel port that we have from the south west. Personally I do think there's an element of Watford Gap syndrome with some of the south easterners when it comes to heading north but hey the rest of us love to get wound up by that one
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
The best article I have seen about Scottish skiing is in the current (or first of the season - don't know if second is out) edition of Ski and Board, a four- or five-pager by Jimmy Petterson buried towards the back with some decent pictures. Not sure if it's mentioned on the cover but it should be - it's the best thing I've seen in the mag for a few issues. Has anyone else read and liked this?
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
Great stuff on page 2, HighRustler.
Due to the thread title, which seems to have nothing to do with the thread, I only just looked at it. After the first pages, though, I got fed up with the bickering.
Arranging ahead isn't really the best way to do Scottish skiing but I'm looking forward to the Snowheads Scottish bash in March:
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
Haggis_Trap on 7 Oct 2011 wrote:
So I heard James Cove is writing the official history of BASI ?
JAMES COVE on 16 Oct 2011 wrote:
I am not quite sure what a story written by a PlanetSKI reporter about the future of skiing in scotland has to so with the fact that I am writing the history of BASI???
2013 HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT UPDATE
James Cove on 17 Jan 2013 wrote:
Then there was James Cove from PlanetSKI. A Level 2 BASI instructor, author of its official history that will be published this year and ski journalist.
And historically moving forwards with what we will do in future, .
I think the real big picture of this will come about when BASI releases and publishes The History of BASI book, it was due out this Autumn, and we will see the Evolution of Trainers since 1962, who have pooled ideas to get us to the stage we are at now.
FAQ
Poster: A snowHead
) who commutes reasonably regularly from Bristol, to Aviemore my longest journey was probably around 9/10 hours with bad road works in the Midlands and a crash, the quickest time has been around 7 hours (with one very brief toilet stop and a fuel stop at Perth) - this, as Winterhighland says above was taking advantage of the newly opened stretches of motorway this summer in Scotland which seemed to make a hell of a difference. The worst spots are, as others have mentioned, between B'ham and the Manchester/L'pool turn offs - nasty traffic and drivers who don't seem to understand the fact you're supposed to move between lanes, not slow everyone down and try to block anyone who might be capable of overtaking you! Past this it's plain sailing (and mostly great views) all the way to Perth where the last bit on the A9 can be a bit of a pain if stuck behind lorries or holiday drivers but the views are great 
