Welcome to Simon Philp's Blog

It wasn’t until a friend Simone on twitter stated about how it’d been snowing all night that I suddenly realised, I’ve not checked the weather reports for up north. Yes, this year I am late in checking out my usual winter haunts. Usually I am on top of any sign of snow fall up in the highlands in hope that the season will kick off early. Like the previous posts: What a pretty sight... Early Season? - Oct 2008 Nevis gets some powder - Nov 2007 Man is it...

Couple of days ago while checking out the Scottish resorts to see what the story was in relation to snow and nothing really stuck out.  Today is a different matter. Taken from : Glencoe Mountains live feed - Click picture to enlarge Taken from : Cairngorm Mountains live feed - Click picture to enlarge Taken from : Nevis Range live feed - Click picture to enlarge Lets hope that the snow keeps falling so that the resorts can open.  As always keep an eye on Visit Scotland for snow conditions.

Update It's been over 2 weeks since I last posed on my blog and the reasons are simple, holiday and real life.  Holiday to Majorca was fantastic,  unfortunately the weather wasn't that great but with old and new friends much fun was had.  Yes, being British, chucking it down with rain and we're all the in the pool playing volleyball.  I am not sure if it was holiday spirit or the vodka slushes but everyone was having a laugh.  I will be uploading all the holiday pictures to Flickr over the next couple of days.  If you'd like to see...

Baz and I decided that we would fire up north Yesterday to the Nevis Range.  On the morning looked out the window. Weathers not too bad, checked weather report for Nevis all's well. At 7am we manage to get petrol and start our journey north. Not too far into the trip and voila snow.   Wasn't long before we were within the range. On arrival around 9.15 we found that there was a problem with the Gondola and that updates were going to be announced hourly.  We went for a cuppa, got changed, started preparing for heading up and enjoying some white stuff. At 11.15...

Two weeks ago while experiencing power kiting for my 1st time in St Andrews I managed to take some photos.  After reviewing the photos I thought I would send 2 into the BBC. Over the weekend it was brought to my attention that 1 of my pictures was on the readers section.  I thought I would have received an email notifying me but there it was http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/7307358.stm. Am chuffed to bits, shame they didn't put my web address up there ;)  More of the pictures I took can be found on my flickr page.

Why is it our government likes to spend a shed load of money on something and then less that 2 years later they pull the plug? Today it was confirmed that the Forth road bridge will be scrapping it's tolls in less that two weeks. However, only two years ago 4 million pounds was spent in putting in a new toll system to help with traffic flow. A whole £1 is the cost of the toll, which, when the toll has be banished where will they get the money for ongoing repairs etc?  Yeap you've guessed it, us. SNP...

Yes well, in the early hours of this morning I posted an entry in relation to how the weather was and how they said it was going to snow.  At that time when looking out the window, not a cloud in sight, just the stars.  Today while up in Dunfermline getting my beer money for holiday it totally changed.  The pictures were taken on my mobile phone(Nokia N95 8gb, 5 mega pixel). * If you would like the full resolution versions of these pictures please get in touch.  

The next couple of days forecast heavy snow.  I don't mind snow infact snowboarding down to the local would be an accomplishment. Getting home with all the gear would certainly be a problem though especially after a couple of drinks.  1st couple of days in this new year have just been horrible. Not long now till we invade Austria for a well deserved snowboarding holiday. Just hope that they get some fresh powder for us to carve up.

I am off to Austria very soon but I am fan of the Nevis range.  This morning when looking at the new live web cams it looks very disappointing :-S. The above picture was taken from http://www.summitpark.eu. Cairngorms The news isn't all bad.  If you keep checking out http://ski.visitscotland.com for the latest updates on the other resorts.  Cairngorm looks decent as they posted an update http://www.cairngormmountain.co.uk/news/77 outlining fresh snow and conditions. Glencoe It looks like Glencoe isn't open....http://glencoemountain.com  If you manage to get up north for some of the powder have a fantastic time.

Being lucky and being within some views of the river Forth it's not every day that the Forth Rail Bridge hides.  

I didn't realise just how many trails there are over at braefoot. We took a quick trip round there since it was a nice evening.  The picture below was taken from braefoot looking out to Inchcolm Island. Inchcolm Island - River Forth There are numerous jumps ranging in size and ability. People have obviously put alot of work into creating and maintaing the area.  If your one of these people then please get in touch as respect where respect is due. Just down from where I took the above picture we came across: There are alot more jumps but unfortunately we didn't have time to...

Another day in my favourite resort, Nevis. Upon arriving the slopes looked a little grim and it was a tough call whether to go for it or face defeat and head home. We made the decision to go for it and what a day we had. As you can see from the picture below all the best boarding was on the upper goose and at the summit. The mountain only had about 15 people on it which meant we were able to get some fresh tracks on the summit where a cm or 2 of snow had fallen. "the two...

All it takes is an email, or a text from a friend you haven't heard from in years to make you think back to the past. With the thanks of Bebo it has been possible to find out how people are doing. After chatting to some people I decided to have a look for old pictures. After an hour or two I came across pictures from an outing to Aviemore back in 2001 (I think). Unfortunately John who is pictured in some of the pictures died several years back in a car accident, your gone mate but not forgotten, rest...