Lecht Ski Centre, Aberdeenshire AB36 8YP.
Situated on the infamous Tomintoul – Cockbridge road (A939) and in the heart of the Cairngorm National Park the centre is on the highest main road in Scotland, at 2090ft and the chairlift ride lifts you up another 700ft.
The first trail, ‘Red Fox’, is a red run with a descent of 1,600m and will open by 16th May 2009. This Mountain Cross’ descent has an assortment of dirt jumps, bomb holes, berms and riding features built from rock.
A skills park will open at the end of May.
The second Mountain Cross trail, ‘Blue Hare’ is 1,900m long, a blue single track with easy jumps, bomb holes, bermed corners, avoidance lanes and with passing places will hopefully open by the end of June 2009.
The first sections of both trails are combined at the top of the hill, with extra width and options of feature difficulty.
A “European style” lodge functions as the centre of all the activities, which in the summer also include deval carts, go carts and quad bikes. Here there is a restaurant, bar, toiletes and from July onwards bike hire and cleaning facilities.
A new 360 degree web-cam at http://www.webcam-ski.com/webcams/interfaces/the-lecht/ gives an up to date picture of the conditions on the hill, with specific zoom in points for the attractions.
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nice to see one of the other scottish ski centres giving bikes a go, bit far away for many people but good luck to them.
thats amazing…if they biuld it up with more runs it will be a nice cheeper alternative to going abroad
Not the biggest of descents (the descents being the length of the trails, not the vertical descent of course), but it’s good to have the facility there. Looking forward to trying it out.
is it going to be worth a 7 hour drive????????? if the course developes it may be? be good to go to scotland rather than france?
It’s only 40mins from Aviemore so if you so you can make a good few days of it by doing this and then exploring the trails around Aviemore.
Plenty to ride in Scotland, so here;s another reason to go… good luck to them!
Drove past last weekend and the track was looking really good. I can’t wait to give it a go.
is it going to be worth a 7 hour drive?
It would usually take this length of time to go to airport, wait, board, fly, unload, drive etc to Europe. I think its great, add in the great natural riding in and around the Cairngorms; and the more northern trail centres, and a week in northern Scotland would be fantastic. I look forward to it, and the development of more MTB and adventure sport facilities throughout Scotland…
Good on them, lets hope it all works for them!
They should do the same from the top of the Cairngorm funicular. That would be a brilliant blast
Yeh, 7hrs would be a lot just for one center, but Scottishland is full of awesome riding – you could even venture out into the wilds. Great thing about north of the border is access, basically if there’s a trail you can ride it. Awesome.
Can’t wait for it to open. I live over the hill in Braemar and this will make a brilliant addition to the natural trails around me.
Glenshee (10 miles from me) are also putting in some trail. Unfortunately they don’t seem to be advancing as quickly as the Lecht. I’ve heard that Scottish National Heritage have several objections due to the land Glenshee occupy. They are already required to suspend skiing, regardless of snow cover, due to botanical/breeding concerns.
What we really need is Invercauld and Mar Lodge estates to wake up and provide land for trail building so we can attact some much needed visitors to bolster our local economy.
I only live 30 miles away and drive past it all the time. I really really want it to be good and for it to work out for them but it looks a bit lame- too wide, too buff and too short. It’s obviously taken a lot of work and money but why didn’t they do a short loop of the hill instead? Or a proper DH course a la Fort Bill? Wasted opportunity. It might be worth a go in 12 months time when half of it slides down the hill with the melting snow. At the moment I can’t see it appealing to either trail or DH riders.
Promise I will eventually ride it though and buy some chips at the caff.