 Poster: A snowHead
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In a surprise announcement today, Colin Matthew (Ski Patrol number 1 and Winter Operations Manager) broke the news that Cairngorm Mountain is getting a state of the art snow cannon from Austria to enable a snowmaking trial on the mountain this season....See: http://blog.cairngormmountain.co.uk/?p=270]Cairngorm
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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That's great to read, particularly as it's not April 1st. I noticed in the blog that a small scale hydro scheme is also being assessed and may be provided by the manufacturer FOC. We've had a small burn running down the road in front of our house for most of 2009 so do you think we can apply for this scheme and would Transport Scotland object to a little turbine by the side of the tarmac ?
Seriously good news though. Cairngorm have had fair criticism for lack of initiative in this respect and Alan at winterhighland has facilitated a great deal of data gathering to prove that it might be not just viable but at what elevations too to fill some of the weak links.
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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?
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Yes a fantastic bit of news, it was talked about a while back but looked like it wasn't going to happen, so really positive. It will allow not just some experimenting with snow making, but crucially also an opportunity to assess durability of machine made snow on the 'Gorm and hopefully get some hard figures on melt rates in different weather conditions. This will allow comprehensive degree day ablation modelling on past, present and projected future weather scenarios to tell us just how much snow needs to be made on run X to be skiable throughout peak season Y out of Z years.
Which in turn can be fed back into looking at what type and scale of system to go for and the economic impact of it. A stat that underlines the unpredictability of Scottish Weather and it's effect on mountain snow cover, we are massively down on air frost and potential snow making this Nov/Dec compared to the past 2 years, yet there is a notably much more extensive base on the mid and upper mountain. As it happens snow cannons could be blazing at Glenmore tonight, as last night and likely several nights to come, while air temps remain stubbornly above freezing on the mountain.
With that in mind, perhaps the Mar Lodge Ski Area was not such a crazy idea after all, perhaps with better technology and had it been built on the other side of the Glen to be North instead of south facing, Scottish Skiing might have followed a very different evolution.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Fantastic news! Nothing better than some on the ground research to back up the weather stations. Winterhighland, do you or anyone else know if Mar Lodge has had enough overall cover over the past 10 years that would have allowed a commercial ski operation to commence?
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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Can't believe they don't have it already!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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queen bodecia, Thats because you come from England, those of us that come from north of the border do believe 
However its good news and lets hope it is a success.
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This sounds like more dithering.
They should just go out and buy an IDE snowmaker. One that works in all temps.
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Fantastic news for sure and congratulations to Cairngorm (and Colin in particular) for biting the bullet on this one. Also I suspect none of this would have been possible without the input of Alan (both of 'em!) and many others on Winterhighland so well done one and all 
Now lets hope that the trial goes well and machine made snow is shown to be a viable option for the future.
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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.
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Great news.
I just hope it's not a token gesture as earlier this week the new "owners" - HIE - were still saying worrying things like “The ability to affect numbers of skiers is outwith our control. It depends on the snow.”
Someone posted this link earlier this week: http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1518057?UserKey=#ixzz0ZPpt45Zd
I know the tourist-trips-on-the-train revenue props the whole thing up, but let's hope they don't write the snow off yet. Even with climate change we've got at least, oooh, 5 years left 
Let's hope this show's them the potential - well done Colin!
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Its arrived this morning - must avoided the snow chaos in Southern Englandshire.
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FAQ
