The weather forecast was not great, but it turned out much better than forecast and we had excellent snow conditions on the upper mountain, though soaring temperatures lower down made it heavy going.

There was a ski race event on, featuring some of the Canadian olympic squad – unfortunately they had reserved all the blue runs on the upper mountain, leaving Catherine and I with no choice other than the much steeper black runs!

It was an excellent day, and we’re now quite confident on black runs where there are few bumps – the bumpy blues are still a challenge that Catherine doesn’t particulary enjoy so we’ve been sticking to the groomed runs, of which Nakiska has loads. All in all an excellent last ski day.

Tomorrow we’re going on a tour to Lake Louise including some snowshoeing.

The good news about the travel difficulties is the dog kennels are able to look after the dogs for the extra time should it be neccessary, though we’ve still not head from the rep at 22:00 local time.

This evening we had a message from the rep informing us of the pickup times for our return flight on Wednesday. Apparently we’re now flying back with Thomas Cook rather than Monach as Inghams decided to combine the flights. They did this three weeks ago, just after we booked, but didn’t bother to tell us. The new flight is a couple of hours later, so we’ll almost certainly miss our FlyBe connection back to the island. So rather than a relaxing last day skiing tomorrow, we’ve got to call FlyBe and try and arrange a later flight, and hope the kennels can look after the dogs for the extra time.

Perhaps the rep can work something out for us, but I’m not optimistic as Inghams are almost certainly the worst tour operator ever, and their telephone staff in the UK are universally ignorant and rude.

After the first Canada trip back in 2007 when we booked directly with them and they changed the flights upsetting the whole holiday (ski school started on Sunday and our flight was moved to arriving late on Sunday!), we swore we would never use them again. Unfortunately when booking with lastminute you don’t know for sure who the operator is until you’ve gone through the booking process.

Anyway, hopefully FlyBe will be able to help, but those Dash 8s are normally quite full out of Gatwick and we’ve got a lot of luggage.

This evening we went back to Mount Norquay for the night skiing. I decided to hire a snowboard, and as a result ended up sliding on my backside for a longer distance than I can remember. I may have a few bruises in the morning, but all the bones are still in one piece.

Snowmobiling tomorrow!

Norquay is a fun little ski centre with loads of steep blue runs that are perfectly groomed, so it’s ideal for practicing technique. It was much quieter than the last time we were here, no crowds or queuing.

In the afternoon we went tubing, which involves sliding down an ice slope on an inflated inner tube. It was great fun, but I somehow managed to miss the matting used to slow tube riders down, instead I launched over the top of the end berm and straight through the plastic fence too! Wish I was videoing it for Youtube!

It was another day with unlimited sunshine, and though there has been no fresh snow since last week, conditions are still excellent, with just some heavy snow on the lower slopes.

The custom ski boot footbeds are certainly worth the money, and after 6 hours of skiing today our feet were still comfortable.

Tomorrow is a day off from skiing, so we’re heading out to the husky dog sledding.

On a practical note we’ve also had our 5 year old ski boots refitted with $50 footbeds to try and restore some of the comfort. The skis are also being serviced tonight as an unplanned excusion over a hidden rock left my bases in less than mint condition.

Unfortunately the iPhone camera isn’t dealing with the snow very well, with underexposure and colour balance issues. However, here’s a pic from today anyway.

Finally, we were eating dinner in a restaurant on the main street this evening when a deer walked down the pavement, which was different.

However for the Saturday Cairngorm would be even busier and the forecast looked better in the South, so we headed of to Glenshee. Glenshee was the last Scottish resort that we hadn’t been to, as unlike Nevis and Glencoe that are within 20 mins and 45 mins of Fort William, and likewise Cairngorm and the Lecht for Aviemore, Glenshee is in the middle of nowhere. There are some towns not too far away, but whilst Aviemore and Fort William are quiet, Pitlochry and Blairgowrie have nothing at all!  In reality it’s only 25 miles south east of Aviemore, but the road journey is 80 miles and takes 1h 45m – however it if you hold the map just right, Glenshee is almost on the way back to Ayrshire from Aviemore.

It was an excellent day with relatively low winds when away from the north west faces, and blue skies all day. It was probably one of the best days skiing we’ve had in Scotland with excellent snow conditions, some wind-blown powder and almost all the rocks covered. We explored Cairnwell, Carn Aosda and Sunnyside with the best conditions at Bucharts Coire. Some pictures from the day at Glenshee:

We’re now back to looking at Banff for March. Fingers crossed we’ll be able to sort something out as I’m really looking forward to going back to Sunshine Village. I’d like to get back on a board too for a day or so, though I probably really need some more lessons. Maybe.

However, I’ve always wanted to go skiing in Scotland before Christmas, just to prove it can actually be done! So despite only arriving in Ayrshire at 03:30, we set off for Aviemore and Cairngorm at 06:15 departing the same fog that had been present on the trip up from Lancashire. Fortunately the weather forecast was accurate and north of Pitlochry we broke out into a beautiful crisp, clear winter morning. Arriving at Aviemore just after 10:00, we headed straight to the ski centre.

The conditions were reasonable on the Ciste fairway, but the ice made the ptarmigan bowl unpleasant and the Cas out of our personal limits. However, we had a great time skiing on the fairway, despite having only had 2.5hrs sleep since 08:00 the previous day. Fortunately there were very few skiers and boarders out on Friday, so despite the relatively limited terrain and lifts, there was no need to queue all day.

Rather than head back to Ayrshire that evening, we decided to stay overnight at the Hilton in Coylumbridge. The next day we went to see the Cairngorm reindeer, then back down the A9 re-entering the fog just north of Perth.

It was an excellent weekend, and just goes to show that Scottish skiing is still a very viable option for anybody in the UK – it’s just a case of making use of it when the conditions are good. Hopefully we can squeeze another weekend in sometime in late January.