The first skiing of the year has started in Northumberland as snow settled on parts of the North East.
Members of the ski-Allenheads club were able to take to the slopes at last, as after several days of promising conditions the surface was finally ready to welcome skiers and snowboarders.
The club, in the Pennines in the South West of Northumberland, operates two tows whenever there's enough snow to allow safe skiing.
Members, who pay £35 a season or £75 for a family, are able to make use of the slopes whenever they're open. The town, which lies over 400m above sea level, sees now fairly often and in some years skiiing has taken place for as many as 30 days, though in the 2018/19 season the tows were active for just five days.
And on Thursday, the first skiing of 2020 took place.
After several days reporting snow not yet heavy or firm enough for skiing, on Thursday morning the club's snow report answering machine reported a "perfect" slope.
A spokesperson for the club said: "I'm up at Allenheads and just to let you know there's about eight inches of snow, perfect snow, there's not a breath of wind.
"Beautiful conditions, and we will be running the tows from very shortly [around midday], until about five in the afternoon."
Snow was so thick that the Twitter account for the club warned: "If you go to Allenheads today, please take a shovel as you may need to clear a parking space."
