Winter sports centres counting the cost of dismal ski season

Scotland’s disastrous ski season is sliding to one its earliest endings with not a single winter sports centre open today.

Glenshee in Aberdeenshire said it did not expect to operate again this season, while CairnGorm Mountain, the country’s main snowsport base, simply posted: “Due to the continuing rain and high winds, further shrinking the snow cover, snow sports are now closed until we get further snowfall.”

Nevis Range, Glencoe and The Lecht were also all closed for snow sports due to the lack of the white stuff.

A spokeswoman for Glenshee said it had managed only 18 days of skiing and boarding when it would have normally hoped for over 100 days.

“It has been a terrible season,” she said.

“We really need around 60 days to make it work. But we have only had 18 and we will not re-open for winter sports this season,” she said.

At Glencoe it was only marginally better - just over 30 days of skiing.

“This season has been up there with the worst,” said a spokeswoman.

“We just haven’t got the snow to open. We normally hope to ski into May Bank Holiday but that won’t happen this year unless there is some unexpected huge dump of snow.”

Scotland’s ski centres have suffered one of their worst ever seasons – with operators warning “millions of pounds” have been lost to the economy.

Hundreds of seasonal jobs have also fallen victim to the weather with staff not taken on.

Glenshee alone has not employed 80 seasonal staff, while the operator of CairnGorm Mountain has also started consulting staff on potential job losses at the site.