It's currently looking good for the popular Christmas Holiday period on Scottish ski slopes after all five Highland ski areas announced they'd have terrain open from this weekend – with most already open or about to.
Cairngorm opened first, the weekend before last with Glencoe and The Lecht joining them last weekend.
Glencloe is the latest to open, today, Wednesday 18th December with Nevis Range set to join the other four when they open tomorrow (Thursday 19th), "wind permitting" they say.
Glencoe probably has the most terrain open o far and report, "some lovely skiing on the mid and lower mountain runs."
Their Access Chair, Cliffhanger ("Cliffy") Chair, Coire Pollach and plateau Poma are all open and conditions on the upper mountain is being reviewed daily. Cliffy opened yesterday to great excitement.
Glenshee has opened Claybokie, Plastic and Dink Dink running and hope to have the Cairnwell T-Bar running later today.
Nevis Range will celebrate 30 years since their 1989 opening this Saturday 21st December with ski passes for the day reduced to their 1989 price: £12.50 for adults and £8.50 for kids when booked in advance.
Scotland had a very cold first three weeks of November with consistent sub-zero temperatures but the next three weeks in to the first half of December has seen rapidly changing conditions including gales, heavy rain and temperatures getting up top double digits above freezing.
However the past week has seen a return to more consistently low temperatures and that looks to be holding firm now in to the latter half of December.
There has been some natural snowfall but for most areas not yet enough to open much, if any runs with only natural snow. However it has been cold enough for snowmaking systems to operate and all five areas now have all-weather snowmaking machines.
So each has snow play and beginner areas open using snow made in this way, whilst some, including Glencoe, have more extensive terrain open too.