Key to establishing life and society in the Arctic Circle 4,000 years ago, dog-sledding has become the focus of countless holidays to Scandinavia and North America, and a popular extra activity on Alpine ski trips. Dog-sledding, Gloucestershire and Kincardineshireĭog-sledding with Artic Quest in Gloucestershire In Northumberland, volunteer-run Ski Allenheads (annual membership only, £35 adults, £20 junior, £70 family) has several tow lifts, a cabin, and is beginner friendly, offering short runs.īuy the annual pass for Yad Moss and you can ski at the others at a reduced cost. The Lake District Ski Club (£20 per day, £50 annual membership) sets up a button lift on Raise, the peak next to Helvellyn, to access nine spectacular ungroomed runs while Weardale Ski Club (£20 adult day ticket, £48 season ticket) in County Durham has two button tows accessing off-piste terrain and about six runs, for intermediates only. There’s no hire shop or lessons, so it’s not for beginners, but it’s more than two miles of fun, and an absence of rocks on the landscape allows skiing on relatively thin snow cover. In England, a drag-lift is set up in the North Pennines at Yad Moss (day ticket £20, juniors £10, annual pass £55 adults, £10 juniors) when there’s snow (check website for updates). It’s community-owned and run by volunteers, with no hire shop and obligatory annual membership to access the slopes (£45 per adult, £75 family pass, under 18s £25). As they roughly form a ring of about 300 miles by road between Perth and Inverness, you could opt for a road trip between them all.Ī smaller area in the south of Scotland, Lowther Hills, has two tow ropes accessing a nursery ski slope and an intermediate area. The smallest of the five, The Lecht Ski Centre (adult day ticket £32, children/juniors £16-21 per day) in the eastern Cairngorms, has 20 runs and 13 lifts on a rolling hillside.Īll the resorts have artificial snow-making, ski schools, equipment hire shops and extra activities such as ringos and tobogganing. Glencoe Mountain Resort (£27-35 per day adult, £20-22 junior), with 20 runs and nine lifts, claims to have the longest and steepest pistes, and has “ microlodge” wooden cabin accommodation (from £65 sleeping four) at the resort base. Scotland’s sixth-highest peak, Cairngorm Mountain (adults £35 a day, child £22), near Aviemore, offers this too, with 11 lifts accessing 31 runs, and three snow parks with jumps.
It also promotes the surrounding area for ski touring, offering a ski touring ticket (£12) for those climbing up under their own steam, as well as standard lift passes. Glenshee (adult day pass £32, junior £21) has the biggest ski area, with 36 runs totalling 25 miles across three valleys, and 21 lifts. Register for snow alerts in advance and check resorts’ own websites or Facebook pages for conditions updates.Ī quick lowdown: Nevis Range (day tickets £37.50 adults, £24.50 junior), Scotland’s highest resort, has arguably the widest variety of terrain, with 35 runs, 12 lifts and an off-piste area of “Back Corries” – steep chutes – for experts. If you can, go last minute when there’s snow incoming, ideally midweek when the slopes are quieter. The five main ski resorts of Scotland’s Highland and Aberdeenshire region – Cairngorm Mountain, Glenshee, Glencoe, Nevis Range and The Lecht – usually open in December, with the best snow from January until resorts close in April. Downhill Skiing and snowboarding, Scotland and northern EnglandĪlthough skiing or snowboarding at indoor snow domes such as Hemel Hempstead’s Snow Centre (from £29 an hour adults, £24 juniors, group lessons from £42 an hour), or the country’s dozens of dry ski slopes is a lot of fun, they can’t really compare with sliding down proper snowy mountains in the great outdoors.