Song for Sunday

Another banger from Royksopp, this is a good tune to get you stoked for shralping the hills

Sketchy Saturday

Friday Forecast

Cairngorms

Sheiling platter and Car Park tows now open. Others on hold untill the wind calms down. VERY ICY AROUND CAR PARKS AND BUILDINGS Pretty Stormy at the top of the hill at the moment and blustery at Car Park level. All traffic via the down road as the link road is getting widened. Day Lodge Poma is off with an electrical fault and engineers are still working on it. We have a shuttle bus booked everyday so there will be the option of skiing back to the Ciste Car Park.

The Lecht

The Lecht competition will be going ahead this weekend!! if you fancy hitting up the rail jam make sure you are around the nursery slopes for a 5 o'clock kick off, if the kicker jam takes your fancy that will be kicking off on Sunday morning around 10am . All runs complete with hard packed snow with all nursery runs open, we are expecting white cloud and temperatures of -3 on Saturday, on Sunday the sun will be popping through to say hi every now and then, and temperatures are set to be a little warmer, so that should set the scene for the kicker, there should be a good crew of people there so hope to see you all their!!

Glenshee

All the runs have full cover of soft snow on a hard base. Outside the runs there are acres of snow especially Glas Maol and Carn Aosda giving great off piste for the more adventurous skier/boarder. There is ample nursery area.

Saturday should start dry and bright but cloud will increase by late afternoon. The wind will be light North-Easterly.

Glen Coe

All Runs have an excellent cover of soft snow. If you are going to head across to Glencoe be sure to bring cash as their card machines havent arrived yet.

Forecast for Sat 6th Feb - 15-20mph South easterly wind. Possibly one or two snow flurries. Visibility may vary during showers.

Nevis

After a stormy spell at times on Friday the weather looks better for the weekend.
Most runs are complete and the upper mountain has a wide cover with plenty of snow between the runs providing off piste areas.
Snow conditions were soft today and may firm up with a bit of fresh snow.
Good skiing for lower abilities around the top station and on Linnhe and Alpha runs.
Back Corrie may open this weekend, but will be assessed daily.

Terrain Park has various features including rookie rails, a rainbow rail, a double c rail, tyre, kicker and rollers.

Recommendation:

The lecht is the place to be for all things freestyle, however if you fancy a change of scene and a good old freeride then Glencoe seems to be fairing out to have the best conditions, wharever you go have a great time, and make the most of this fantastic season we are currently experiencing. woooohoooooo.

Rad so we're having a wee jam this weekend at the Lecht, just a wee fun sesh to start the season properly. Its all weather dependant thoagh so for up to date info check out the Lechts facebook page.

Oh yea there'll also be a prize for best retro ski suit :) so see if you can find yer grunnys ald nevica in the attic!!

Nice een I hope to see everybody up the hill this weekend for a good wee slide!!

Neil

Song for Sunday

Sketchy Saturday

AG in AB

Hey everybody, sorry for the delay since my last post. I've been fully intent on having a small edit for you to take a look at however I keep getting so involved in riding that I haven't taken enough video.

Things in Banff have been going great. I've just got a second job working in a huge outdoor sports shop on Banff's main street. It couldn't come at a better time since budget cuts have resulted in my hours at the CD shop being slashed to a pathetic 4 hours a week.

The town itself is really starting to buzz. With the beginning of February we start to move into high season so there should be plenty more people out here for the next few months. Olympic fever is sweeping the nation and every town has had themselves a party as the torch has passed through on its way to Vancouver. We managed to get a grip on one of the torches in Banff while a runner waited for the changeover of the flame.

didn't expect to ever hold one of these

With the Olympics only a fortnight away the excitement is building over here, just a shame that our British athletes may not even be getting a chance to compete.

After a ridiculously warm January there is high hopes of a massive dump of snow sometime in February. The rivers and lakes that were frozen solid in December are now melting and looking like they should look in April. This has been worrying but several local mountain-men have assured me we will be waist-deep in the near future. I hope they're right!

amazing ice formations due to the warm weather

As far as riding goes I have been using the lack of new snow to focus more in the park. I have been progressing well, building up to cork 5s and 7s on the 40ft kickers at Sunshine Village. I will have to step up to the 65fters soon which will be scary stuff. Hopefully by my next post I will have some good footage to show you. Sunshine are nearly finished the second half of the park. Once it's complete it will be one of the biggest parks in North America and it has plenty of quirky little features to mess around on, as well as some mean-looking jumps.

I haven't ridden in a few days now as a direct result of doing my best Sam Longmire impression in the park the other day. After increasing my approach speed for some 7s I went for a BIG misty 5 attempt at the same approach speed but forgot to slow down the rotation. I only have a photo of what happened but if it had been a video it would have looked very similar to Sam's infamous fall in NZ this summer. The only difference being that my point of impact was the top of my left ass-cheek rather than the base of my spine. Despite the pain I was pretty happy about that as I picked myself up off the floor at the bottom of the jump. I may not have been able to sit down too well for the last few days, but the season goes on. I'll be trying my best not to make that mistake again!

Oh boaby!! Still 15ft off the ground, add another 270 degrees to landing on the back. You get the idea

And so I end this post with a promise that I will take more footage before my next . It's snowing outside at the moment so hopefully my next few days will be full of powder slashes and park progression. Fingers crossed for an edit next time around. I'll leave you with a picture of Banff's saddest dog who, despite his miserly appearance, is actually delightful when approached!

I'm sad because I can't read Unbez

AG

Friday Forecast

Cairngorms

Sheiling platter and Car Park tows now open. Others on hold untill the wind calms down. VERY ICY AROUND CAR PARKS AND BUILDINGS Pretty Stormy at the top of the hill at the moment and blustery at Car Park level. All traffic via the down road as the link road is getting widened. Day Lodge Poma is off with an electrical fault and engineers are still working on it. We have a shuttle bus booked everyday so there will be the option of skiing back to the Ciste Car Park.

The Lecht

The Lecht competition will be going ahead this weekend!! if you fancy hitting up the rail jam make sure you are around the nursery slopes for a 5 o'clock kick off, if the kicker jam takes your fancy that will be kicking off on Sunday morning around 10am . All runs complete with hard packed snow with all nursery runs open, we are expecting white cloud and temperatures of -3 on Saturday, on Sunday the sun will be popping through to say hi every now and then, and temperatures are set to be a little warmer, so that should set the scene for the kicker, there should be a good crew of people there so hope to see you all their!!

Glenshee

All the runs have full cover of soft snow on a hard base. Outside the runs there are acres of snow especially Glas Maol and Carn Aosda giving great off piste for the more adventurous skier/boarder. There is ample nursery area.

Saturday should start dry and bright but cloud will increase by late afternoon. The wind will be light North-Easterly.

Glen Coe

All Runs have an excellent cover of soft snow. If you are going to head across to Glencoe be sure to bring cash as their card machines havent arrived yet.

Forecast for Sat 6th Feb - 15-20mph South easterly wind. Possibly one or two snow flurries. Visibility may vary during showers.

Nevis

After a stormy spell at times on Friday the weather looks better for the weekend.
Most runs are complete and the upper mountain has a wide cover with plenty of snow between the runs providing off piste areas.
Snow conditions were soft today and may firm up with a bit of fresh snow.
Good skiing for lower abilities around the top station and on Linnhe and Alpha runs.
Back Corrie may open this weekend, but will be assessed daily.

Terrain Park has various features including rookie rails, a rainbow rail, a double c rail, tyre, kicker and rollers.

Recommendation:

The lecht is the place to be for all things freestyle, however if you fancy a change of scene and a good old freeride then Glencoe seems to be fairing out to have the best conditions, wharever you go have a great time, and make the most of this fantastic season we are currently experiencing. woooohoooooo.

Duthie's Diaries: Beer and Loathing

Over the years, I've made no secret of my disdain for this kind of thing:

click this picture at your own risk

Yes, the promise of distance from that skin-crawling world of 'the apres lash' is one of the reasons we decided on a season in Brides. A visit to notorious apres-ski magnet The Rond Point seemed to confirm our suspicions that Meribel could be among the worst offenders.

Was this really fair, though? There was only one way to find out. After getting wind of a Brides-Meribel return bus trip, I gathered a crack team of highly qualified investigators: K-Don, borderline alcoholic; Hamish Duncan, co-inventor of DeathWish (more of which later); and Ali Bayne, last seen at the Stirling services in 2008 after a week-long Austrian powder/booze binge.

The following is accurate to the best of my knowledge.

7.30pm

The plan was to essentially crash the Crystal Holidays' weekly Meribel bar crawl, jumping on their 8pm coach from Brides and returning at 2am. With the resort's reputation for extortionate prices, it seemed the best thing to do would be to frontload with the local fizzy wine from Moutiers (guaranteed messiness at a seasonaire-frendly 1 Euro per bottle). After a few rounds of DeathWish for good measure, we headed along to the bus.

8pm

We met the coach, and the rep who'd kindly agreed to ferry us up the hill. The journey was uneventful, save for the man who spewed all down the emergency exit stairs midway through the rep's speech about the terrible things you'd be in for if you spew on the bus. His excuse that the French food was disagreeing with him would have been more believable had it not also clearly impaired his balance, as well as his powers of speech.

9pm

Leaving the visibly miffed rep to deal with the invalid, we headed into the first pub. With a hipflask of rum about his person, Hamish played it fiscally safe and only ordered a pint of Coke, but still ended up getting stung for five euros. The barman, hailing from rural Perthshire, rebuffed his protests with the explanation that "we're in Fraaahnce, it's expensive don't you know". Fortunately we conned our way into some hand-stamps which brought the price down in each pub, and so we carried on.

9.30pm

In the next bar we settled into some Travel DeathWish. In short, DeathWish is the bastard offspring of Play Your Cards Right. Travel DeathWish substitutes playing cards with credit cards, driving licenses, blood donor cards and the like, with no change to the rules. The potential for losing all identification and monetary sources while playing is half the fun.

[Everything a bit of a blur from here on in. My guess is that we were playing Meribel Bingo: take a drink every time you hear the words "proper", "Facebook rape" or "lush". Fast forward to the penultimate bar, wherever it was, in the wee hours]

??.am

Charged with getting a round in, Kyla comes back with pints of a questionable purple colour, which put paid to any more serious discussion about the merits of a night out in Meribel. After those we were as good as on the floor, and there was nothing else to do but sit back, steady ourselves on the table, and attempt to tolerate that other bane of resorts such as these: the British covers band who seem to believe that no-one's heard Kings of Leon's 'Sex is on Fire' enough times yet.

1.30am

Dick's Tea Bar. Your guess is as good as mine.

2am

It was all over and we boarded the bus back to Brides. The next day was a time for reflection, as well as suffering. Was Meribel's nightlife all that i expected (and feared) it to be? The short answer is yes.

However, to paraphrase the Bible, there is a time to laugh, a time to cry, and a time to get absolutely rinsed and knock several lumps out of your mother's pride. Any environment where it's mandatory to get between six and eight hours of exercise a day should always have the option to undo all the good work later on. Amongst the crowds of punters in any apres-ski bar, you will find scores of folk who love their sport and take a well-earned swally after a solid day's riding. The only ones I've got qualms with are those who are happy to let the boozing take precedent as their skis/boards are neglected. It's been said a hundred times before, but still: you can get drunk anywhere, but if you're in the mountains, you have opportunities that are not to be missed. Hats off to the likes of Chris Hazeldine, Julian Leighton, Chris Rettie, Ally Gray, Bruce Robertson, and all the other shredders I've met who can prop up the bar with the best of them, but can still be found on the hill the next day. I raise my glass to you.

Duthie

Friday Forecast

Cairngorms

been bullet proof all this week, more snow drifts and extreme weather has ment that the gorms was closed today. The next two days have foretasted winds up to 25mph with temps as low as -3.

Lecht

Some of the Unbez and Kaplank crew were up shrapling the Lecht today and said the pisted runs were had some fantastic snow!Winner! With three 15ft booters in a row, which is good for the mega booter Nick and Neil are preparing for there comp up there next weekend I think. Forecast is light winds.

Glenshee

Good cover with everything expected to open. Cloud is likely to pick up in the afternoon with a frosty clear start to the day. a SE 5mph winds expected with temps about +1C

Nevis Range

Good cover higher up, patchy but can ski back on the rabbit run. Tomorrow sunny and mostly dry with NE winds at 10mph and about 1C.

GlenCoe

Expected to be sunny, a small risk of snow flurries with a NE wind reaching 20mph.

Summery:

Hit up the Lecht for some park rat action!!