CairnGorm Mountain expects to open for snow sports tomorrow, Saturday 9th November, on what will be the earliest start to a season for five years after a week of low temperatures and snow storms.
Only 170 days after the last day of the 2012-13 season on 19 May the resort plans to welcome skiers and boarders to its Coire Na Ciste fairway on the upper part of the mountain on Saturday and Sunday.
”We plan to offer snowsports on Saturday on the Ciste, with a groomed marked run on skiers’ left of the fairway. However, with 70mph winds we were unable to fix the tow bars onto the Ciste Tow today (Thursday),” said Operations Manager Colin Matthew, “It is looking pretty windy tomorrow (Friday) as well, and if we cannot bar the tow up on Friday we will have to do it early Saturday morning, so there may be a delay to the planned 10.00am opening. We will know more on Friday and keep customers informed.”
Ticket prices this weekend will be £15 for adults and £10 for juniors per day. Equipment hire will not be available at the resort but will be available in Aviemore. Conditions-permitting the resort will continue to open for snowsports at weekends in November.
“Although this is not the earliest we have opened in recent times – we started skiing on 1st November in 2008 – it is great to have enough snow to ski on in November as it whets the appetite of our customers and creates a real buzz of anticipation about the place,” said CairnGorm Marketing Manager Colin Kirkwood.
The resort has undertaken significant maintenance of its skiing infrastructure during the summer. Approximately 3km of new post and rail snow fencing has been erected in order to catch more snow for pushing onto the pistes and snowmaking capacity has been increased with a new larger TechnoAlpin TF10 snow cannon in addition to the present four cannons and a new motor has been installed in the heavily used Coire Cas tow.
A replacement vehicle for gritting and ploughing has been acquired to help keep the roads clear along with a 6-wheeled ATV with tracking system which will greatly facilitate movement of the maintenance team to troubleshoot around the hill.
New hydraulic rams have also been fitted to the pisting machines to facilitate the movement of snow cannons around the hill.
Snowboarders can look forward to the results of CairnGorm’s acquisition of a Pipe Magician from Corvatsch in Switzerland which will enable the resort’s pisting team to cut quarter and half pipes and shape other features in the terrain park. The park is in its third year of sponsorship by Quiksilver Roxy and it has been confirmed that the Vans Hi Standard series event which made its Scottish debut at CairnGorm last season will return there on 5th April 2014.
