Adventure Blog Scotland | Snow » 2008

So Much Snow

April 11, 2008 on 8:43 am | In Snowboarding | No Comments

Scotland has some fickle weather and most of the time this tends to hinder rather than help in the pursuit of outdoor action but this past few weeks the fickle and large snow showers which have been regularly passing over the Cairngorms have brought a frenzy of fresh track hunters and have helped to put many happy smiles on many faces. It really is unbelievable on Cairngorm right now and also on the other Scottish resorts, so I have heard. I have been too busy getting fresh tracks on Cairngorm to make it over to any of the other resorts yet. Word on the ground is that Nevis Range is the best it has been for many a year and I can safely say that Cairngorm is definitely the best I have seen it for many a year.

Yesterday I rode all the way to the bottom of Coire Louigh-mor to the Ciste Car park. I have not done that since I was a wee lass. The day before that I got some POWDER turns on the head wall. Proper powder turns in Scotland. It was slightly wind effected but only a bit. Today I am heading west into Coire an t-Sneachda to try and get some lines down Jacobs ladder and Aladdins Couloir the former of which I saw Mike Jhachy charge down a few days ago in a very impressive display of Scottish ski-ing. So, get your skis and boards back out of storage and get on the hills. There are fresh tracks to be had a a lot of fun to go around. I will see you there!!!!

Lesley McKenna
http://www.chunkyknit.com
Professional snowboarder, film maker and ambassador for Visitscotland. All sorts of outdoor sports from skiing to mountain biking and now mixes her time on the Snowboard World Cup Tour with time in Scotland doing these sports.

April snow storms

April 3, 2008 on 12:06 pm | In Snowboarding | No Comments

It very often snows at the start of April and it looks like this April will not disappoint. Last week it snowed a fair bit on Cairngorm and although we have had a few warm days it is forecast to dump this weekend. There is a great base and with some new snow on top the conditions should be pretty good!!! That is great news for me because I am heading back to Scotland tomorrow for a week to get in some home shredd.Right now I am at the British Snowboard Champs in Laax in Switzerland and it is all going pretty well. Unfortunately I did not have two clean runs in the pipe but I still ended up 2nd with Kate Foster taking the win. It was a well fought contest between myself and Kate in very difficult conditions, it was pretty much a blizzard. The men’s comp was also a tough one.

The conditions made it difficult for riders to do their best tricks so it was a very tactical comp. Dom Harrington came out on top with Ben Kilner taking the silver and Sam Cullum the bronze. As well as riding in the comp myself I have been looking after the young Roxy riders, Abi Dempster, Ashlee Smith and Aimee Fuller. They have all been doing very well and so far team Roxy have won 8 medals!!! I am now very much looking forward to coming back to Scotland to get a bit of riding in on the April snow, hopefully with some sun over head as well!!!