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Message: <blockquote data-quote="JWN Andrewes" data-source="post: 3704472" data-attributes="member: 7131">5th April: part IIIThis was something of a revelation to me, never having visited in good skiing conditions, it was very strange to suddenly find myself in the middle of someone else’s subculture! Lots of rugged, chiselled looking chaps, taller than me, or hip teenage danger-junkie types, all wearing fat jackets in primary colours, wearing goggles and carrying a variety of shiny planks. The top car park was full already, so we watched Red Grouse bombing around in the snow from the lower car park while we waited for the shuttle bus. Eventually we made it, but with the peaks shrouded in clouds there seemed little point in joining the long queue for the furnicular and instead we had a scan around from the car park. We soon spotted some picnic tables above the car park where it seemed (relatively) quiet, and from here we eventually found one of the things we were looking for, as a flock of two dozen or so Snow Buntings descended on the look out for scraps. Over the next forty minutes or so we enjoyed excellent views of these while the boys delighted in playing in waist deep snow, and I scanned as much of the surrounding slopes as the weather would allow for Ptarmigans or Mountain Hares, neither of which materialised, although there was no shortage of tracks from the latter. I think that if we find ourselves round here in these conditions again the key will be get up Cairngorm as early as possible before it gets rammed. Having ridden a very full bus up the one that took as back down was almost empty. We left the sporty types to their fun in the snow and headed back down to Aviemore.</blockquote>

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