flugeryl Wrote:
its too windy with not enough staff for snow farming in scotland....so I have been told when I mentioned this before, although I quoted sunshine's use of snow farming on goats eye mountain
The Milkman has the most fun
Aye, I've heard this before, but the people who say that, have clearly not spent any significant time in the high-alps or rockies. You are absolutely correct about Goat's Eye - tremendous snow gathering below the tree line, but scoured rock scree above, which without the snow farming that goes on, would be unski-able for the masses. In fact, if you head uphill from the top of the Goat's Eye chair, it's often a yomp over rock and wind polished ice, whilst the "farmed" slopes below the chair are corduroy powder.
Wind speeds over 100kmh are commonly recorded in the western alps above 2000m, and early season, it is not uncommon for the available sliding to be between snow fences or in natural gulleys at higher exposed locations. Pic attached shows overnight damage to infrastructure in Leukerbad in Dec 2008 just to show the power of high alpine wind.The sign is an anodised steel structure !
Edited 1 times. Last edit at 06.43hrs Wed 20 Oct 10 by Hipennine.
Attachments:
leukerbad wind damage.jpg (48kB)