Skiing in Scotland – The Ultimate Pizza Restaurant at the End of the Universe (Glenmore Lodge Head of Skiing, Andy Townsend)
Skiing in Scotland
By Andy Townsend
I’m in Edinburgh, and have just been presented with my Guides diploma, I am on top of the world, slightly emotional and flushed with pride. A single question from a fellow Guide my wings are on fire and I crash and burn.
“I hear you’re moving to Scotland. Are you mad?”
I have relived this moment over and over again, and of course at the time I was dumbstruck, my mouth flapped like a goldfish out of water and I was unable to come up with the killer witty response to put my quizzical colleague back in his box. In a way he was right, I love skiing. My wife loves skiing and my kids are growing up to be just as obsessed with skiing as us, so why not move to the Alps.
Well the answer is because Scotland, in particular the Cairngorms is the ‘Ultimate Pizza Restaurant at the end of the Universe’. I apologise for this Douglas Adams inspired reference but I can think of no better way to describe why I choose to make my home Scotland.
Every tasty pizza needs a good base, but it’s the combination of toppings that make them delicious. Skiing in Scotland has unique and easily accessible terrain that when it snows your ‘pizza’ can have as many different toppings as you want and because the restaurant isn’t always guaranteed to be open, they will taste all the sweeter. The Cairngorms has every type of skiing to suit every type of palette from steep to shallow, from technical to easy it’s all on the menu.
The Cairngorm Backcountry Pizza Menu:
Pizza Margarita, the classic, simple and quick
With the proximity of the lifts on Cairngorm Mountain a circuit of the Northern Corries is a must and a great place to start your love affair with east coast skiing. Ride the Ridge and M1 poma to the Ptarmigan lift station (touring ticket available) a quick hot chocolate is a derigour before either skinning or booting to the summit of Cairngorm. From the summit a ribbon of snow usually allows you to ski first South and then South West into Coire Raibert. On with the skins and a gentle tour along the northern edge of the Loch Avon (pronounced Arrrrrrrn) basin will lead in to Coire Domhain, a good spot for lunch before the final skin onto the summit of Coire Lochan. Off with the skins and first a gentle ski west before turning North West all the way down to the top of Lurchers gully, quite possibly the most reliable and skied patch of snow in Scotland. Gentle wide slopes, transform into easy spring snow late season make this the perfect GS turn, hero territory.
Pizza Quattro Formaggi, the ultimate tour for all tastes
The absolute must do classic of the Cairngorms is the 4 tops (actually its 5 but then the pizza reference doesn’t work!) Cairngorm, Ben Macdui, Carn Toul and Braeriach. I’ve never been big on unnecessary effort so I would start at the ski car park on Cairngorm and use the lifts to get a head start, on to the top of Cairngorm and then across to Coire Domhain. Pleasantly undulating terrain leads on to the summit of Ben Macdui, Scotland’s second highest summit. From here, head South and pick up the top of Taillears Burn, one of the best descents on the tour. Taillears Burn is the perfect angle, not too steep but lots of fun and nearly always full to the brim with snow. I won’t lie, the climb up to Cairn Toul via the Devil’s Point is a bit of a slog, but once on the plateau you zip quickly to the summit of Braeriach. Now Braeriach is a skiers mountain, and would be the perfect place for a ski area but the road went to Cairngorm so they built it there, it has everything: wide open slopes, steep bowls, couloirs that would make a Chamonix Guide sweaty, the choice is yours. For me, I would head North West and carve beautiful turns all the way down to Glen Einich or I might choose to head East and ski something like West Gully and then back into the Larig Ghru, almost too much choice.
Pizza Calzone, a surprising combination of the best
When you order a Calzone you need to be hungry and they very rarely fail to fill you up to bursting. The gullies of the Cairngorms are the same, there’s lots and they are easy to get to and you can feast on more than one a day. In fact there is nowhere else in the world with so many great ski lines for such little effort. Coire Sneachda and Lochan have lots of great lines, Jacobs Ladder and Aladdin’s Couloir are must do classics whilst the ‘Couloir’ in Lochan is a steep outing for the connoiseur. If you’re not into slaloming between all the climbers and mountaineers who take up residence in these corries then Loch Avon is the place to go. Diagonal and Y gully are superb and can be easily linked together before lunch, and even combined with the more famous lines in Sneachda. Travelling a bit further March Burn usual gives good sport and is my favourite way into Larig Ghru. Skiing on Braeriach is quite simply the best, especially in early spring when the snow has transformed into predictable corn. A quick scan with binoculars from the roundabout next to the pizzeria at the Southern end of Aviemore will tell you if the lines are in and then hop on your bike for a quick ride up the relatively flat Glen Einich. You can leave your bike in the heather before skinning up the Escalator, a ribbon of snow that never fails to form, it leads from the plateau right down to the glen. Once on the summit, laps of the northern slopes and coires will easily satisfy any hunger. Any imaginative combination of the lines will fill you up and be the perfect weekend, morning or afternoon snack to help you through the next week at work.
Pizza Demone
Always on the menu, a spicy little number for the hard men to prove themselves on. The Cairngorms have no shortage of lines to push your boundaries on. Snechda is again a firm favourite for exploring the steep lines, with numerous gullies and tributaries and its ease of access means this is a great place to warm up before heading over the back. Castlegates and Pinnacle Gully, off Shelterstone crag can be approached with a pleasant ski down Coire Domhain. As you pass under Hells Lum you can be awed that it was skied by Glenmore Lodge Instructor Martin Burrow-Smith back in the 80’s when he and his colleagues pretty much skied every line in the Cairngorms, mostly on 2m GS skis. These gullies can be accessed from the top but being a little old fashioned, I prefer to boot up them just to check out conditions as these shady devils can sometimes transform into ice rather than spring snow. For a little more remote spice, head to the numerous lines in the coires of Braeriach, with their huge cornices and steep runouts. Why are Cairngorm gullies so good? It’s all down to wind, lots of wind! Over the winter the Cairngorm plateau acts like an aeroplane wing accelerating the wind speed to hurricane proportions. As the wind blows, the snow gets stripped and packed hard into the gullies filling them up. Sometimes the plateau can have only a few inches whilst the gullies are buried under metres of snow, which is great for us!
As I write this my mouth is salivating with the anticipation of pizza tonight but more because I am ready to step into my skis and get stuck into Scottish skiing again. Yes, there are times when its windy and challenging but those days are simply training for when its good, and when its good its better.
I am used to defending Scottish skiing, I chose to move here, but its more than defending skiing in the Highlands, I actually love it. As Duncan Freshwater, Olympic skier and coach says “Its ours”. We should rejoice in its diverse menu of pizza toppings. So next time you’re dreaming of skiing in Norway, the Alps or Japan, take a moment and look at Scotland, you can be here in a jiffy, no need to change any money and you can leave fully satisfied, well fed on Scottish pizza.
My top ten gullies or ski descents in the Cairngorms
1: Coire Raibert – just pure fun skiing right to the shore of Loch Avon.
2: Jacob’s Ladder and Alladins Couloir – because you have to.
3: Diagonal and Y Gully – can’t do one without the other.
4: March Burn, steep at the top then mellow
5: Castlegates and Pinnacle Gully, Shelterstone.
6: Tailiears Burn – a classic.
7: Braeriach from Glen Einch via the Escalator – can be seen from Aviemore.
8: Lurchers Gully, it was my first so will always be special.
9: The Saddle, great skiing and a little journey as well.
10: The Couloir in Lochan, everyone needs a reality check once in a while.
Essential Scottish Backcountry ski kit:
– Comfy touring boots, to cope with walking.
– A mountain bike, to cope with the long approaches.
– Helmet, only just got one but it makes sense to me.
– Maps and compass, you have to be able to navigate.
– Binoculars, so you can spot lines from afar.
– Gloves, to cope with the damp snow.
– Rope, lots of cornices and a length of rope always comes in handy.
– A belay jacket, synthetic ones are best as they work wet or dry.
– Flask, the hot juice variety but the occasional ‘nip from the hip’ also helps.
– Imagination, anything goes in Scotland, you just need to put your skis on it.
– Gore Tex, Scotland is surrounded by sea so its no surprise you get wet occasionally.
Stuff you need to know
Skiing in Scotland is simply brilliant, but it can at times be a bit like go into a lion filled Gladiator arena and not having a shield or sword. To survive the harshest artic mountains in the world you need to be on your toes constantly, ever vigilant to the rapid changing conditions and be able to cope with everything that could possibly be thrown at you.
Avalanches
Obviously triggering an avalanche in Scotland is something that any skier should be constantly trying to avoid, the potential for burial is an ever present threat. It’s being swept into rocks or over cliffs that is the biggest hazard to our long and fruitful skiing careers
The Scottish mountains are almost unique in the world for having such an active maritime climate. As skiers who spend a lot of time in the Alps we are used to a snowpack which transforms slowly. The massive fluctuations in temperature, coupled with the moisture laden snowpack means that in Scotland everything is in a constant state of flux and anyone not completely on their game will be caught out. This rapid melt/freeze cycle does however, mean that towards the end of the season we will generally have a snowpack that has pretty much transformed into beautiful spring hero snow.
The Scottish Avalanche Information Service SAIS produce avalanche forecasts throughout the winter and its these reports that should be come the focus for any aspiring Scottish skier. Make looking at the SAIS website part of daily routine. A casual glance at the forecast as you clip into your skis is not enough, you need to have a long term picture of how the snowpack is evolving and this can only be achieved by constantly watching and reading the reports. The SAIS blog is also another source of useful information and can often tell skiers where the best snow is lying, it won’t tell you whether its safe to ski, that will have to be your choice.
Wind
The winds on our mountains are never pleasant, but they are as Scottish as ‘neeps and tatties’. The high plateau of the Cairngorms act as an aeroplane wing, exaggerating wind speed. Remember the wind is our friend to as it is busy packing snow into gullies which would normally be to sheltered from snow accumulation. The Scottish skier has to be able to work with the wind, you need to become good at planning you routes to make the most of a tail wind and ski lower on the mountain when its gusting high on the tops.
Everyday jobs have to be adapted to cope, removing skins becomes laborious as the wind nags around, grabbing skins and flapping them wildly around. Get on the ground is the best advice, peel you skins off a little at a time and roll on your cheat sheets just like a bandage. Shelter behind a rock may seem sensible, but actually that’s where the wind is looking to pack snow in, and unless you want a rucksack full of windslab, you’re sometimes better doing battle in the open. If the wind is really strong, teaming and working with a partner to remove skins is often the only option but don’t let go of skis as the wind here can have them spinning off into the whiteout in the blink of an eye.
Navigation
It goes without saying that this is a core skill, and whilst it is complicated on foot, it’s twice as complex on a pair of skis. Good navigation will help you find your line and avoid the slopes where only a fully disposable avalanche ‘poodle’ should be. Navigation is simply one skill that you can’t learn on the job, it just too serious if you get it wrong. Maps, compasses, gps and altimeters are some of the tools you will need to efficiently moved in the mountains, and you need to be skilled at using them with gloves whilst in a blizzard.
Skinning
When I first Guided the Haute Route I was amazed that the skin track started on the Argentiere glacier and ran all the way to Zermatt. The Scottish wind which is constantly changing the snow surface and simply won’t let skin tracks build up. You will need to get really good at putting your own in. Picking the right line is a fine balancing act between too steep and too shallow. The wind polished snow surface is geared up to not letting you get too steep, forget the heel raisers on your touring bindings, as you raise your heel you will start to lose forward traction. Instead, use the terrain to your advantage, follow ridges and undulations and make your kick turns on top of buried boulders so you have a flat turning area. Be flexible when it gets steeps or hard and icy, get your skis off and crampons on and walk, it will nearly always be quicker than doing an impression of Bambi on ice.
Rucksacks
You need to develop and unhealthy OCD about what is in your rucksack and how its packed. You need to be able to access just about every bit of kit quickly and usually at the same time. Fancy ski touring packs with an impressive array of zips giving easy access, seem like a good idea but will ultimately allow the wind to blow snow in and kit out. Go for a slightly bigger bag than normal, packing a belay jacket away in a hoolie into a big bag is much easier and quicker than trying to squeeze it in behind your skins in a euro style handbag.
Providers:
https://www.glenmorelodge.org.uk
Websites
http://www.sais.gov.uk/page_Northern%20Cairngorms.asp
http://www.steepscotland.info/northern_Cairngorms/
Webcams
http://www.cairngormmountain.org/web-cameras/
http://www.skiclub.co.uk/skiclub/webcams/webcams.aspx/Cairngorm-Aviemore#.VFtZLv7iu70
https://highland-webcams.com/cairngorm-mountain
http://beta.scottishbackcountry.co.uk/
Cafes
http://mountaincafe-aviemore.co.uk/