DAY 10 OF THE SCOTTISH SEASON 16/17 

Dawn on Sunday  morning was a cracker. The deep orange light streamed through the rear window of the car. Once again the skies were clear above and the day ahead promised to be a scorcher. It was around 6° at the car park level. As I ascended on the access chair the temperature didn’t drop that much. The bottom of the plateau was getting muddy, but the Poma uptrack was holding together for now.

The whole middle section of the mountain is now looking more like early May or June, rather than March. Luckily it wasn’t too busy as the majority of visitors were all in Main Basin and Happy Valley.

Conditions were very similar to the day before and if I’m honest it was a day for relaxing alternating between Main Basin and Happy Valley and sunbathing at the summit or the cafe.

I’d had four consecutive days snowboarding during the worst season in memory. Taking photos, editing in the evenings and sleeping in the car, wearing the same old snowboard gear each day. But today proved that it was still worth the season ticket. It had payed for itself in the end. Although I’d squeezed every opportunity out of this mild, so-called winter, having the season pass pushes you to get out and do more. If I hadn’t got a season pass this year I probably would have skipped a few of the days and in the end would have been lucky to get 2 or 3 days snowboarding. At the end of last year’s amazing season I’d bought myself a new snowboard, it never came out of its wrapper and I trashed my spare early season board after a few visits, but what looks like it might be the last day snowboarding made it all worth while.

I’ll take minimal coverage and a trashed board over no snowboarding at all. 10 days is no more than a good holiday, but better than nothing. Maybe next year I’ll plan a holiday though, just for back up.