Skiing: Why the Scottish Freedom Series needs more flexibility to survive in a warming world

In theory, the second event in this year’s Scottish Freedom Series, the Corrie Challenge, could still take place at the Nevis Range ski centre near Fort William this weekend. However, to say the odds are now massively stacked against it going ahead would be understating the case.

First held in 2014, the SFS is Scotland’s always-entertaining freeride tour, in which the nation’s most talented off-piste skiers and snowboarders compete to see who can make the most jaw-dropping descents of steep, obstacle-strewn slabs of mountainside. In previous years there have been four events in the series, but this season there are just three: the Glenshee GOAT at Glenshee, the Coe Cup at Glencoe and the Corrie Challenge at Nevis.

This year’s Glenshee GOAT was cheduled to take place on 8 and 9 February on the north-east-facing slope beside the Tiger, one of Glenshee’s two black runs, but it had to be cancelled due to a lack of snow, and it now seems likely that the Corrie Challenge will meet the same fate. At Glenshee, there has at least been enough snow to provide a respectable amount of on-piste skiing this season, albeit much of that facilitated by artificial snowmaking and some judicious farming of existing snow. By contrast, Nevis Range hasn’t had enough white stuff to open its pistes to skiers and snowboarders at all as yet, and its webcams show only a thin, patchy covering on its signature run, The Goose. The Mountain Weather Information Service forecast for the West Highlands does forecast some snow on higher ground over the next few days, but it would take a significant snowfall to turn things around.

That said, the only certain thing about the weather in these islands is the uncertainty, and it is still just about conceivable that an unexpected snowpocalypse could transform the Back Corries, where the event takes place, from a treacherous rock-garden into a mouthwatering array of powder-stuffed off-piste delights.

Mike Begley skiing the Back Corries at Nevis Range | Stevie McKenna / ski-scotland

Early editions of the Corrie Challenge were held in Summit Gully, near the top of 1,221m Aonach Mor. However, in recent years the default contest site has shifted to a lower run called G&T Gully, accessed via Nid Ridge. Partly this change was made for safety reasons: Summit Gully’s exposure to the prevailing winds can leave it heavily corniced at the top, whereas G&T’s is more sheltered. The move also made logistical sense: for all that Summit Gully has seen some jaw-dropping riding at previous Corrie Challenges, its remoteness meant that some athletes were taking as long as an hour to get back to the top of the hill after their warm-up runs; G&T’s, by contrast, allows for a much easier commute back to the lifts.

If the 2025 Corrie Challenge somehow goes ahead as planned, both competitors and spectators will be in for a treat; in the event that it goes the same way as the Glenshee GOAT, however, the last chance saloon for this year’s SFS will be the Coe Cup, due to be held at Glencoe on 22 and 23 March. First held in 2012, this is Scotland’s original freeride contest, and it can justifiably claim to have sown the seeds for the series that followed.

Dave Findlater competes at the 2012 Coe Cup freeride event at Glencoe | Roger Cox / The Scotsman

Glencoe is also the most snow-sure stop on the SFS calendar, thanks to the way the steep-sided gullies of its upper mountain area hold their snow even during prolonged periods of thaw. Discounting the Covid years of 2020 and 2021, the Coe Cup has gone ahead in some form or another for nine years out of a possible 11 – an 81 per cent strike rate. Compare that to five events out of a possible nine for the Corrie Challenge (56 per cent) and, including this year’s cancellation, one event out of a possible three for Glenshee GOAT (33 per cent), and you have to wonder if it might now be time for a climate change-enforced re-think how the SFS operates.

Katie Small competing in the Lawers of Gravity event in the Ben Lawers Range - part of the Scottish Freedom Series in 2016 | Roger Cox / The Scotsman

It’s certainly not the case that Scotland’s winters are no longer snowy enough to facilitate a three or four-stop freeride series: have a scroll through the Instagram feed of Cairngorms-based backcountry guides Blair Aitken and Gavin Carruthers (@BritishBackcountry) and – even in a lean winter like this one – you’ll see them finding skiable conditions all over the place. That’s the key to their success, though: their all-over-the-place-ness. By restricting itself to specific locations on very specific dates, the SFS is setting itself up to fail. Even professional Freeride World Tour events at high altitude, snow-sure locations like Val Thorens give themselves a week-long waiting period to ensure optimal conditions – trying to predict a snowy weekend in Glenshee several months in advance is the meteorological equivalent of playing pin the tail on the donkey.

No doubt there are all kinds of legal considerations preventing the SFS taking large groups of amateur snow-sliders into remote, mountainous locations in order to do potentially dangerous things. If the SFS is to survive and thrive though, it badly needs to find a way of becoming more flexible, whether that’s in terms of venue selection, contest waiting periods or (ideally) both.

For more on the Scottish Freedom Series, see www.britishfreeride.org/scottish-freedom-series