Skiing in Scotland: ‘On a good day it’s up there with anywhere in the world’

With five resorts all a two-hour drive from Aviemore, the Highlands glitter with the promise of ski adventures – and whisky

Take a right from the top lift at Glencoe Mountain Resort and you will quickly be confronted with one of the greatest views in Scottish skiing. The rugged bulk of Buachaille Etive Mòr, often called Scotland’s most beautiful mountain, overlooks the deep valley of Glencoe, just around the corner from the “007 Skyfall road”. The panorama then leads past the Devil’s Staircase, on the West Highland Way walking route, and round to Rannoch Moor, one of Europe’s great wildernesses, a sprawling peat moor dotted with lochans and ringed by rolling hills.

This is a glen hailed in guidebooks – and one that snowboarders and skiers in the UK can access in the atmospheric glimmer of winter at a fraction of what they would pay for a trip to the Alps or North America (weekday lift pass £30, £35 weekends), making it a budget option – with a much lower carbon footprint, too.