Ski resorts in Scotland

Scottish skiing is a weather window rather than a season. Five centres, Cairngorm, Glenshee, Glencoe, Nevis Range and the Lecht, run largely on natural snow and Atlantic systems, which means conditions can go from bare heather to a full mountain in three days and back again the following week. When a cold northerly locks in, particularly in February and March, the coverage on the Cairngorm plateau and at Glencoe is genuinely good and the terrain is far more interesting than the modest statistics suggest.

The character is raw. There is no treeline skiing to hide in, the wind can close the upper lifts and often does, and the tows are old fashioned in places. In exchange, Glenshee has the most extensive network of runs and the widest spread of terrain, Nevis Range and Cairngorm have gondola access and hold snow highest, and Glencoe's Flypaper remains one of the steepest marked runs in Britain. Day tickets cost a fraction of Alpine prices and there is no flight or transfer.

The wider Highland winter is the real draw. Scottish winter mountaineering and ice climbing on Ben Nevis and in the Cairngorms is world class and has produced generations of alpinists. Ski touring in the Cairngorms and the Monadhliath is growing, cross country trails run at Glenmore and Huntly, and snowshoeing and winter hillwalking work when the lifts are shut. Add wildlife watching in the Cairngorms National Park, distillery visits along Speyside, and the sort of pub with a fire that makes a wind hold day tolerable.

Scottish mountain food is the base station café done well or done badly, and increasingly the former: Cullen skink, the smoked haddock, potato and onion soup, Scotch broth, and a venison or steak pie are the reliable orders. Stovies, potatoes cooked down with meat and onion, is the traditional cold weather dish and turns up in Highland pubs more than in the resorts.

A full Scottish breakfast, with square sausage, black pudding and a potato scone, sets up a Highland day properly, and the seafood on the west coast within an hour of Glencoe and Nevis Range, particularly langoustines and mussels from Loch Linnhe, is the best eating in the area by some margin. Haggis, neeps and tatties is genuinely good and worth ordering somewhere that makes its own. Cranachan with raspberries, cream, oats and whisky finishes a meal.

Whisky is the point. Speyside distilleries are within easy reach of Cairngorm and the Lecht, Ben Nevis distillery sits at the foot of the mountain in Fort William, and a dram after a cold day on the hill is closer to a necessity than a tradition. Scottish craft brewing is strong, and Irn-Bru functions as the national recovery drink. Après ski is a Highland pub with a fire rather than a terrace, which suits the weather.

Commercial skiing in Scotland dates from the late 1950s and early 1960s, when the Cairngorm chairlift company opened the Coire Cas access road and the first tows, followed quickly by Glenshee and Glencoe. Glencoe's first tow, on Meall a' Bhuiridh, was built in 1956 by a group of Glasgow enthusiasts including Philip Rankin and is usually credited as the beginning of lift served skiing in Britain.

The Scottish Ski Club, founded in 1907, is one of the oldest in the world outside the Alps and Scandinavia, and predates most of the sport's Alpine institutions. Scottish winter climbing has an even longer pedigree, with the Scottish Mountaineering Club established in 1889 and the Ben Nevis and Cairngorm routes serving as the training ground for British Himalayan mountaineering ever since.

The industry has had a difficult few decades as warm winters have squeezed the natural snow seasons, and the centres have survived through community ownership, public support and diversification into summer mountain biking and gondola sightseeing. Nevis Range, opened in 1989, was the last new centre built. Skiers who understand the deal, watch the forecast and drive on the right day still get excellent days out of these hills.