Scottish Ski Season Underway

Scotland’s ski season has gotten underway during Christmas week with the four centres that have all-weather snowmaking each offering limited snowsports in one form or another.

After low temperatures and snowfall allowed Cairngorm to open limited terrain for a week or two in late November and early December, warm, wet and windy conditions through much of this month wiped out the early snowpack.

However, Christmas week has brought more settled conditions and low temperatures again at last so Glenshee, Cairngorm and The Lecht (pictured below on 28th December) have opened limited skiing, mostly with their all-weather snowmaking machine, although Cairngorm also has some skiing thanks to fresh natural snowfall on the upper mountain. Glencoe also has a snow slope but for now is only offering sledging on it.

Cairngorm has its Polar express running at the Top Station and the lower conveyor operating at the base but reports its limited allocation of tickets has sold out. The terrain suits beginners but there is also a small freestyle features line, set up about 200m from the Ptarmigan building, running down the Ptarmigan fence line for our more experienced riders. Cairngorm has also been running floodlit snow sessions from 3:30pm - 5pm.

Glenshee has two beginner runs open using machine-made snow.

The Lecht opened on Boxing Day with a beginner area open served by its Wren carpet lift.

The fifth Scottish ski area at Nevis Range has not got a functioning all-weather snowmaking system and has not operated any snowsports for several years nor published any update on any plans for over a year.  The snowsports section of its website references a statement made over two years ago. In autumn 2024 it said it would open if natural snow conditions allowed but its unknown if that's still the case