The snow cover largely unchanged over the past week. The snow on the runs was better than expected after the freeze/thaw action following Tuesdays soft surface. Sugary powder in the Ciste Gully which opened mid-afternoon gave a good surface, as did the Fiacaill, most of the M1, M2, Cas and Fairway. The White Lady was good in parts, particularly lower down, but there were more ice cookies on it than there were elsewhere.
The off-piste is varied - it could be some nice patches of powder, some flat smooth firm snow, some frozen rutted drifts, or with ice cookies. The East Wall offers arguably the best of the off-piste, with the number 1 gully giving a good speedy descent on soft snow down to the Ciste Gully.
Rather than going down the Cas and getting a shuttle bus to the Ciste, I instead went down the traversing fences above the two East Wall gullies, and continued to follow the Coire Laogh Mor fencing out of the ski area boundary, and round and down to the Ciste carpark - sliding the whole way. There were some wide snowfields, and good snow particularly in pockets and lower down where it was softest. Only 2 pairs of ski tracks in the snow infront.
Very few queues - the open terrain swallowed the numbers today.
