Saturday on Cairngorm Mountain

I headed up to Elgin for the weekend to visit Mum & Dad et al. and to take advantage of the snow up in Aviemore. I hadn't been up to the Cairngorms since school days so the Funicular Railway, new Ptarmigan Restaurant and the new base "Cas bar" were all new to me, and very impressive. The Funicular thing was especially neat, running at a top speed of 10 metres per second, the run up to the top of the hill was fast. The driver's commentary also made it fairly amusing.

The snow was the best I've experienced in Scotland for years, unfortunately though the visibility for the top third of the hill or so was pants. Not too windy though and not as busy as I thought it might be. Lots of fun anyway, lots of muscle pain also for the last couple of days. I need to get back to the gym...

I'm still trying to build up speed on the board, which wasn't helped by not being able to see anything in front of me. Towards the end of the day I was again pretty confident with the whole snowboarding gig, certainly much more so than the post Christmas Lecht trip which was marked by frustration more than anything. This time I actually enjoyed the boarding so that probably says something.

What else can I tell you? I forgot my jacket (which I acknowledge was pretty dumb) but was able to hire one for six quid fifty. That unfortunately involved a good bit of queueing however at the start and end of the day. Also, the bar at the top only charged £2.40 for a pint of Stella Artois, a reasonable price indeed given the lack of competition up there. They also sell haggis flavoured crisps, but they don't taste of haggis. The smoked salmon flavoured crisps taste of smoky bacon.

Posted by Paul in Snowboarding Entertainment at March 7, 2005 10:33 PM