jabuzzard, I don't think I asked Cairngorm ops a leading question. It's clear that we wanted to know typical new snow accumulations on the main upper/mid runs (the White Lady might be said to span both).

This photo from yesterday shows the ops team bulldozing snow on the Ptarmigan, which is not an area of the mountain that carries the deepest accumulations. But look at the sheer quantities they are moving. You're not seriously disputing their observation that 2-3m of new snow is up there, are you?

[PTO for photo]

As for the "pig-headedness" comment, it is true that I'm in dispute with certain dominant elements within the Ski Club of Great Britain. Widespread misinformation has been committed, and Scottish snow reporting is only one part of that. There's a simple solution - made numerous times - that the depths are not reported until they are measured. Scottish skiing existed while Queen Victoria was still on the throne. The SCGB has existed since 1903. Human beings have been measuring things since they inhabited caves.

This is not rocket science.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 10.32hrs Thu 28 Mar 13 by David Goldsmith.

The snow-shifting operation at the Ptarmigan yesterday.

Evidence of a bit more than 21cm of new snow.





Edited 1 times. Last edit at 10.33hrs Thu 28 Mar 13 by David Goldsmith.

Attachments: Ptarmigan snow.jpg (57kB)  

What is the relevance of the disputed figure (new snow) anyway ? Surely the key things are depth and condition ?

Does it really matter have much new snow drifted or fell and what the depth is? Most folk can tell what it's like by looking at webcams or the public reports.

No I am not but take a look at this picture

[www.winterhighland.info]

Are you telling me there is 2-3m of snow there? A quick gander at the Winterhighland web cameras on Cairngorm show areas inside the ski area that have barely any snow on them, which is the point you don't seem to be able to get into either your closed mind, or your terminally thick skull. I repeat it matters not one jot at all that the wind has caused drifting to accurate reporting of fallen snow depths.

To make it absolutely clear, the depth of snow fallen does not and never has translated directly to depth of snow on a piste. Really this is not a difficult concept to understand.

Sure I can look at your rubble-strewn wind-scoured wilderness that no one skis, or I can look at a photo that comprises a substantial proportion of the acreage of Cairngorm's skiing ... while noting the estimated new accumulations reported by the operations team - 2 metres plus of new snow.



I've never seen so few rocks on Cairngorm. The cover is absolutely phenomenal. There has clearly been metres of new snow, which is what the mountain personnel say.





Edited 2 times. Last edit at 13.16hrs Thu 28 Mar 13 by David Goldsmith.

The point is, you could pick a point on the mountain to come up with any depth of snow from 0mm to probably 10m.

You seem hell-bent on proving (by assertion) that the correct figure is 2m.

However, the rest of the world, to give some level of reproducability to the measurements, do not simply pick measurements they feel are appropriate.

This does mean that snow-depth measurements are not the be-all and end-all when assessing conditions at a resort. It does not mean that SCGB's figures are as inaccurate as you seem to be making out.

Ironically, I think the SCGB figures _are_ inaccurate, but your irrational ranting rather detracts from this point and simply makes you seem unhinged.

To reiterate jabuzzards point, which you have once again completely ignored:

Quote:
To make it absolutely clear, the depth of snow fallen does not and never has translated directly to depth of snow on a piste. Really this is not a difficult concept to understand.

Edited 2 times. Last edit at 13.29hrs Thu 28 Mar 13 by davidt.

Once again, this was the exact question posed to Cairngorm operations yesterday:

[www.facebook.com]

"Can you guys put a rough estimate on how much new snow landed on the mid-upper slopes of Cairngorm in the past 7 days - in the main piste gullies? Just to settle a debate!"

This was their reply:

"Probably 4 m Cas gun barrel , 2-3m white lady, 2-3m ptarmigan bowl, 12-15m Ciste gully, top of Sheiling tow area 2 m, Burnside 2m, Fiaciall piste 2 m"

Whether it's drifted snow, snow out of a gun, snow out of a cloud or snow spread out by a Pistenbully ... that is what these experts are saying is new snow on the main piste gullies they've specified. And that's what skiers want to know about - the new snow depths they're skiing on - not the dusting on a rock they're not skiing on.

No point in having academic debates - let's deal in what's underfoot.



Edited 2 times. Last edit at 14.48hrs Thu 28 Mar 13 by David Goldsmith.

David, It is the ski centres that provide the snow depth and recent snow information to the SCGB. They are currently reporting exactly the information that we give them.

So YOU are the evil mastermind behind this fiendish plot!!!

A NEW TIN

igloo4you, thanks for that point. I wasn't aware that SCGB HQ had changed its approach and given the correspondence (!) over the past couple of years I'm amazed they didn't tell me!

Just for the record, this is what was stated officially by the SCGB on Facebook on 3 May 2012 ...

"Regarding depths, then there are no official depths available from the Scottish resorts so we aim to report representative depths as it states in our site. We do this through various means including talking to skiers in Scotland as well as people within the ski industry who are in Scotland."

... and on the SCGB video Snowcast on 26 Nov 2001 ...

"What makes the Ski Club’s snow reports different is that it’s not just automated data from the resorts – we have a team that gathers and checks the information every day. This is how we can deliver unbiased and accurate snow reports to you."

I just report exactly what it says on the tin!

And that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the amount of level snow that fell out of the ski, which is the figure that you are complaining about. Anyone claiming that 2m of fresh snow fell out the sky over the last week is out of their right mind.

So is the figure of fresh snow falling out the sky as reported by SCGB accurate? The answer is almost certainly yes. Does this have anything to do with the snow depths on the pistes? Very little due to storm force winds redistributing the fallen snow.

Why it is so hard for you separate these two things in your mind is beyond me.

There appears to be no way of having any sort of debate with you.

Thanks very much for posting this. Excellent news and surely everybody can only be happy that this is the source of the measurements.

Probably means that adding to this thread is pointless now, given the opening post?

Absolutely, except I think you could have left out "now" from the last sentence.