After more than three weeks of snow and ice and in the midst of the best conditions for winter sports in 50 years, one of Scotland’s best known ski resorts has remained closed for a second day because of too much snow.
Announcing its closure on its Internet site, the operators of Cairngorm Mountain, Aviemore, declared “groundhog day” and attempted to strike a cheery note to those winter sports enthusiasts stunned that their chance to enjoy a rare opportunity for a ski weekend in Britain had been stymied.
“We have come in this morning and it feels like groundhog day — all our work yesterday has been filled in,” read the notice. “We’re at it again with two 23-ton caterpillar diggers, a large JCB and three of our own machines. The piste machines are also moving snow down banks beside the road so the diggers have somewhere to put the dug- out snow.”
Warning that the resort would probably not open today, the operators added that potential visitor should listen to Moray Firth Radio before setting off for the Speyside mountains.
In recent years, a succession of warm winters had brought the Scottish skiing trade to its knees, an irony not lost on Barry Gromett, a Met Office forecaster. “It’s a bit like buses,” said Mr Gromett. “You wait for a number of winters for skiing snow without any luck, and then it all arrives at once.”