Last week we recorded over 8,000 skier days, our busiest day was last Tuesday with 1300 skiers. Historically these numbers aren’t stunning by any means, but these days this is good steady business and well within the capacity of the ski area, even with the snow cover we have at the moment. This is a real win win situation, as not only did we have good skier numbers, but we also know from our feedback that we had a lot of very happy customers. Of course the settled weather really makes a difference and although this element is out of our hands it’s important we make the most of good conditions when we get them. The team here has been working hard to do just that.  Without the warm winds from the South West the snow pack has held together really well and overnight some fresh snow has fallen - the first for many days.  The week end is normally our busiest time, but not this week end; we think our regulars decided it was going to be  busy and it wasn’t – but those who came enjoyed some great skiing with minimal queuing , particularly on the Cas. The ski schools have also been busy with the Mountain school currently employing over 35 instructors -  most classes are around beginner level and this helps to create a new generation of young and not so young Scottish skiers – our life blood for the future of Scottish skiing.  Many of our customers took advantage of the flexible three-day pass which provides skiing at excellent value at £22 per day.  Yes, the market has changed, as has the weather and the demographics - and we have taken all these changing factors into account in planning the best way to sustain our snow business - sometimes these decisions have not been popular , but they are proving to be realistic.  These days Scottish skiers tend to take short breaks when the conditions and weather allow, supplementing their main Alpine holiday. Scotland can be a great place to learn and for most people it’s just good to get on snow for the odd day even if these days our main ski holidays tend to be in the Alps or North America. If only we could guarantee the stable conditions we are currently enjoying!  As a reminder of the old days, see below some archive photos of the queues on the Lady, car park and Fiacaill ridge back in the 1980’s and early 90’s. These photos were sent in by one of our season pass holders – Keith Bryers. We are going to set up an archive photo album on our main web site – so if you have some interesting photos of the old days please send them in. 

Bob

This entry was posted on Monday, February 18th, 2008 at 11:39 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.