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(Images credit Steven McKenna for Ski-Scotland)

The five Scottish Highland ski areas will be running their annual SnowFest this weekend, 19th – 20th March.

Although it has been a glorious sunny week across Scotland snow cover s holding up on higher slopes and
each centre has activities planned for this the third time the event has been staged.

At Nevis Range these include a Snow Sculpture Competition, the chance to meet a real sled dog team plus
a limited number of ski and snowboard lessons at half price whilst CairnGorm Mountain has an Upbattle Splitboard Derby, offering participants the chance to try split boards.

Glenshee will feature a have-a-go race course and Retro Ski exhibition with the chance to try the old equipment, prizes for retro ski gear, an opportunity to try snowsculpture and free use of the Beginners Area on Sunday and Glencoe Mountain has fun events on Saturday including Zibob racing, Snowtrac rides, snowman competitions and an igloo building demo as well as an Alpine competition, with the Junior Coe Cup taking place over the two days.

Finally the Lecht's Penguin Park and rondell will be open for tots to learn to slide and have fun in the snow.



As in previous seasons, a feature of SnowFest will be a simultaneous mass descent at each ski area, this year planned for 1pm on Saturday 19th March, although the event will move to the Sunday if conditions are not suitable.

"We are looking forward to welcoming as many skiers and boarders as possible to take part in this fun descent. In some resorts, a piper will lead the descent, while The Lecht's Parker the Penguin will lead theirs!" said Chair of Ski-Scotland, Heather Negus.

www.ski-scotland.com/snowfest

(The pound still buys more than a year ago in Norway, above, just)

The pounds has dropped in value against leading ski currencies over the past month due to 'Brexit' fears, according to global currency business Centtrip.

The company says that, compared to values a year ago, the pound is now only up in value, by 3.1%, against the Norwegian Kronor. This is different to the position a few months ago when the pound was up against most 'ski currencies' except the US dollar.

Sterling has fallen in value by between 0.8% and 10.1% against nine popular 'ski currencies' according to Centtrip.

The biggest drop (based on the exchange rate on 25th February 2015 against the rate on 25th February 2016) is against the US Dollar whilst the Canadian dollar exchange is only down 0.8%.

The pound is down against the Euro by 7.2% and the Swiss Franc by 6.2%. It is also down again Eastern European currencies including the Bulgarian Lev (7.3%), Romanian Leu (6.2%) and Polish Zloty (2.5%).

"The current uncertainty around whether the UK will stay in or leave the EU is leading to increased volatility around Sterling, and those Brits going skiing or snowboarding now are likely to have less spending power than they did a year ago," said Tony North, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Centtrip who offer a multi-currency prepaid MasterCard which the company says is a cheaper way to take money abroad than other methods.

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A group of PhD students from Imperial College London have hit Kickstarter success by securing full funding for their innovation – wearable technology that helps you ski better – which they've named Carv and aim to start selling from November. www.carvnow.com

Showcased in January at the Action Sports show ISPO in Munich, Carv, is a wearable device that has its own 'brain' that analyses motion and pressure data to give real-time feedback on how to improve your skiing by providing step by step drills and coaching via your earphones. It even advises how to adjust your positioning to land that perfect jump, reducing the risk of injury.

Carv is made up of two elements. The first is a wearable which you can attach to the ski boot and the second is an insert placed inside the boot. All the data is analysed through an app available on iPhone and Android. Skiers receive feedback on their performance either on-screen, or through earphones or heads-up displays.

The PhD students behind Carv have been analysing data from more than 2000 skiers all around the world for the last three years, including current ski cross champion Filip Flisar and have designed the device to be useful for everyone from novice skiers to pros.

For sophisticated skiers, Carv has the Carv Coach platform, which automatically synchronises video footage with the data, allowing instructors and coaches to scrutinize the video alongside the overlaid data.

"With Carv we feel like we're really able to democratise the technology that's currently only available to champion skiers," said founder Jamie Grant, adding, "We're working on introducing a machine learning element too that can 'learn' about each individual skiers and anticipate the mistakes that they are likely to make before they have even made them."

The product is available for advance order through a new Kickstarter campaign (which at time of writing had already raised nearly four times the target investment).

www.kickstarter.com/projects/333155164/carv-the-worlds-first-wearable-that-helps-you-ski

The 50 year old cabins of the old Gant–Blauherd gondola were sold in just five days according to Zermatt ski resort in Switzerland.

When the lift company decided to upgrade the lift, built in 1970, they offered the old gondola cabin for sale at 500 Euros each and they were snapped up.

Work begins on the new Gant–Blauherd lift in May and unusually it is being upgraded from a gondola to a chairlift – albeit a fast one with six-seat chairs.

The new lift will have a capacity of 1,800 people per hour and make the advent from Gant (2,223 m) to Blauherd (2,571 m) in just 3.6 minutes – much faster than the gondola was.
A photo construction diary will go online when work on the new lift begins and it will be operational for next winter 2016/2017.

Work will also begin in May on the new second lift to the Matterhorn glacier paradise at the top of Zermatt';s ski area, and europe's highest-lift-served point at 3,883m.

The lift, announced last year and not due to open for three years until winter 2018-19 is being billed as the highest 3S Lift with 25 big cabins each seating 28 people will carry up to 2,000 people per hour on its nearly 4,000m long ascent from Trockener Steg.

(Pic Credit Alp Productions)

British slalom skier Dave Ryding's is heading to the FIS World Cup Finals in St Moritz next week after making it through the season as one of the 25 best in the world.

"I have achieved something more than I ever dreamt of as a child. It was an incredibly proud moment realising I had made it to the World Cup Finals!" said Dave, who added,

"It has been an incredible season and to take part in every single second run of the World Cup Slalom series this season says a lot... I didn't always get my best skiing out there but I was always there to give it a go. The great thing is I now get another shot and the 2016 World Cup circuit continues for myself to St Moritz."

The World Cup Finals kick off next Monday, with the Men's Slalom taking place on Sunday 20 March.

In the meantime Dave will also compete this weekend in Germany, in the Oberjoch Europa Cup Slalom, which takes place on Sunday.

It has come rather late in the season but the past 72 hours have seen a complete transformation of conditions in the Italian Dolomites with more than a metre of snow falling on some resorts.

The biggest snowfalls came from Saturday afternoon to Monday morning with up to 80cm in 24 hours reported at the heart of the snowstorm.

The Trentino region has been particularly blessed with the latest snowfalls with San Martino (pictured above) and the Val de Fiemme regions each receiving around a metre of snow.

The snow has been bountiful across the Dolomiti Superski region however and there was 80-90cm of snow in the Fassa and Garden Valley and Cortina claimed 110cm since Saturday.

Resort crews have been working 24 hours to open ski runs and lifts. Off piste the avalanche risk in the region has been at the highest level 5 – extreme, since the snowfall started to accumulate so fast.

It is now looking very good for Easter and the rest of the season.

Elsewhere there have been more good snowfalls across much of Europe and huge snowfalls, s forecast, in Western North America again with areas in California posting up to 1.5m (five feet) of snow over the last few days.

Forecasts are predicting some big snowfalls across the Alps, Dolomites and Pyrenees over the next 48 hours, with Saturday the main focus for heavy snow in most areas.

It's at least the thirds time this winter that the big snowfalls have arrived on 'changeover day.'

Reports for the French Alps are mostly for 30-50cm accumulations, with Avoriaz, Flaine and Val Thorens expecting the bigger end of that number, Meribel and Morzine closer to a foot of snow. Megeve however expects 55cm and Chamonix – which is currently claiming the world's deepest snow base on its upper runs at over 6m/20 feet, another 60cm.

In Austreia the numbers are mostly ion the 20-40cm bracket whilst in Switzerland around a foot (30cm) of snow is expected at Davos and Laax but a little further East in St Moritz it may be as much as 60cm (two feet) falling on Saturday. St Moritz has had a poor snowfall season to date so this may balance things out a little.

Similarly more heavy snowfall is expected in the Dolomites to the south, which are also still catching up on their seasonal snowfall quota. Arabba expects more than 40cm, Cortina nearly 50cm.

Other parts of the skiing world are also seeing some of the best conditions of the season so fare, including in Scotland, Scandinavia and the Pyrenees. Bulgaria, which has had very little fresh snow since the start of this year, also has sizable snowfalls forecast.

Sand across the Atlantic huge snowstorms care also about to hit, with some forecasts calling for 5-6 feet (21./5-1.8m) of snow to land in California on resorts like Squaw Valley and Mammoth and similar amounts further north for Whistler in BC, Canada.

The deepest recorded snow base at a ski area on the planet at present has reached five metres for the first time this season.

Alyeska ski area in Alaska hit the 5m mark yesterday on its upper runs in the latest spate of snow storms which have continued for much of the winter along North America's Pacific coast. The resort has also had more snow than any other so far this season – and more snow than most other areas have ever received in any one season – clocking up 17.5 metres (over 57 feet) so far this winter.

That's some way short of the world record set by Mt Baker in Washington state in winter 1998-99 with a total of 29m (95 feet) , although there are a few months to go and it is snowing hard!

Mt Baker is also having a good season after four successive bad ones, particularly last winter when it was forced to close for lack of snow around about this point in the season. This winter it has a 4.4m base and has had 12 metres of snowfall this season to date.

It has been a winter of extremes across North America with generally below average and often poor conditions on the East Coast where it has been too warm and even parts of the West Coast where many resorts have seen huge snowfalls but others have been plagued by rain.

In southern California for example Mammoth Mountain is having a generally goods season (4.2m base) and expects up to two metres or so more snow in the next week, but Mountain High a little further south has had to close due to lack of snow.

Chamonix is currently claiming the deepest snow base in Europe at 485cm.