What is the Future of Skiing in Scotland?
13th August 2024
Last modified on August 16th, 2024
Last winter was poor. Snow was in scant supply and new figures reveal skier numbers were sharply down, but there is some cause for hope. UPDATED
Some called last winter “challenging”, others said it was “dire”.
There are five Scotish ski areas:
- Cairngorm
- The Lecht
- Glenshee
- Glencoe
- The Nevis Range
Last winter’s recently released statistics do not make happy reading.
There were just 55,000 skier days last season across all five resorts.
The worst season of all time in 2016-17 saw 54,000 skier days.
It was therefore the second-worst winter on record.
PlanetSKI was in Scotland last February, but with mixed results.
The total number of skier days across the Scottish resort for the previous season of 2022/23 was 86,100.
For the Covid-compromised 2021-22 season it was 84,140.
The years in the last couple of decades saw 374,789 skier days in 2009/10 and 290,996 skier days in 2012-13.
Some question whether Scotland will still have five fully functioning ski centres in the years to come.
The Lecht warned it may be forced to close as last winter was “dire”and it launched a Crowdfunder page to raise money to stay open.
We reported on it on PlanetSKI as it reached its target, with room to spare.
Speaking to The Scotsman, Andy Meldrum, who runs the Glencoe Mountain resort, remains relatively upbeat.
“We did alright, it wasn’t a bad season in the end,” he said.
“We skied most of the winter, from January right through to the first week in April.
“Most of that time we only had the upper mountain open, but some of that time we had the upper and the lower mountain open, although at no point in the season did we have the mid-mountain open, because that requires the most snow.
“The upper mountain was actually in pretty good nick for most of the time, but when you’ve not got a middle or a lower mountain then your skier numbers tend to be pretty poor.
“I think we skied 62 days in the end, and got around 10,000 skier days in total, so for a lean snow year it wasn’t too bad.”
Here at PlanetSKI we love skiing in Scotland – when conditions allow.
Update:
There has been some reaction over on the PlanetSKI Facebook page:
Hopefully the snow will fall in plentiful supply next winter.
We’ll keep you posted…