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Scottish winters vary greatly, having plenty of snow till
April in some years, and other years barely none at all. The season generally
runs from Christmas to late April but it's virtually impossible to forecast
whether there would be snow in a week's time, much less several months ahead.
In these era of doom and gloom for Scottish skiing, Scotland
In its first year of operation, the amount of visitors who
arrived at Cairngorm for reasons other than snow sports was 180,000. Even so,
because of poor snow conditions, the number of skiing tourists was just 45,000,
less than half the expected 100,000. The funicular, designed to operate safely
in wind speeds of equal to 75mph, is likewise at the center of the skiing
action, which has frequently been cut short by the gales that shoot across the
mountains.
Coire Cas and Coire na Ciste are the two leading points for
Cairngorm's skiing - Coire na Ciste is the smaller of the two bases consisting
of no more than toilets, a ticket office and a chairlift that goes up the
mountain. Over at Coire Cas you'll encounter the main center of operations,
with ski hire, ski pass office, bar, restaurants and ski school. This too,
functions as the departure point for the funicular, which climbs up to the top
of the ski area at 3,600ft. From here you could either go down the main Coire
Cas bowl on the red M1 or White Lady pistes, cross over to a trio of draglifts
which offers a series of easy (but really short) blues, or go into the more
testing Coire na Ciste gully, which starts out green but quickly goes steep
into a choice of red or black. Cairngorm's steepest skiing can be found on the
gullies leading off the East Wall. When conditions allow, there's a terrain
park with jumps, rail slides and other features.
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