 brian
brian
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FFS, get this sorted, CML 
deep sigh
Last edited by brian on Thu 5-07-07 10:40; edited 1 time in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Don't hold your breath brian!
Actually I suspect the decision has already been made as Alan Brattey suggests in the article 
I think this is pretty much bang on as well:
| Quote: |
| Mr Brattey ... believes that Nevis Range is becoming the preferred ski destination in Scotland |
and:
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| Mr Brattey added: "Effectively, demand for skiing is being driven away from Cairn Gorm, and we feel that the businesses in the valley should be very worried about the situation that is occurring at CairnGorm Mountain." |
It's a sad situation but Cairngorm's loss is Nevis Range's gain!
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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It would seem, from a distance, that Mr. Brattey is right. Ruin the skiing and everyone goes elsewhere, then "oh, the demand isn't there". they can then justify any closures. I do agree that the White Lady T bar might not be necessary - but it is heritage!!! I went up it when I was only 13 ....
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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As a one-time Cairngorm instructor - when the first winter I worked had good skiing from early December to May - I'm pretty convinced that the mountain's fate has been written by the climate rather than its management.
My impression is that the mountain desperately needs a 'spinal' chairlift, maybe to replace the White Lady, M1 and Cas tows. The experience on Nevis Range might help to determine whether that is a viable engineering proposition, given the challenge of operating in high winds.
The main thing is that the mountain is a magical place, and I'm all in favour of lots of non-skiing visitors going there to understand its geology and story.
I hope the skiing revives, but the winters have been so unreliable that - frankly - it seems a miracle that the management can hold any programme together. How can you staff a mountain, its restaurants, ski patrol and everything else when you don't know if there will be snow?
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You'll need to Register first of course.
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brian
brian
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nbt, cheers, I've slapped in your link.
The situation now at Cairngorm is that when they do get good conditions they don't have the capacity to cope. The Cas car park fills in no time but there's no way up the Ciste any more so you have to shuttle bus round to the funicular which is queue city. Then the major lifts all have big queues. The end result is a an offputting experience, folk don't come back, revenue goes down and the cycle continues.
They do next to no marketing of the ski business at all these days, conditions reports don't get on the radio or tv. All very depressing.
There was excellent cover through March and April 2006 and nobody there.
Sure, the climate isn't helping but even in a good year like 2001 the number of skier days was less than the worst years around 1990.
tbh, I've more or less given up on Cairngorm these days. I'd rather give my ££ to skier-oriented proactive places. Nevis, Glenshee, Glencoe and the Lecht all fit that bill. Leave CML to play with their bloody train set.
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| laundryman wrote: |
David Goldsmith, I agree with you!  |
David Goldsmith, I don't agree with you!
Seriously though I think Brian has got it bang on, there have been great conditions up there, just look at the Cairngorm Snow discussions on Winterhighland and some of the photos, but the company have now depressed demand artificially and are moving away from snowsports as the core of their business. There is little or no investment in uplift and at a time when resorts elsewhere (even in comparably 'marginal' environments like Australia) are investing in snowmaking and chairlifts (whilst removing surface tows) CML are closing/removing chairs and seem to have no plans to invest in snowmaking. Other potential solutions such as snow farming on the Lady, where the presence funicular track would appear to have stopped the run from filling up as it did of old, have been suggested but nothing seems to have been done, apart from their now seemingly deciding to remove the tow from the Lady after it fell apart (lack of maintenance perhaps?). I'd suggest this is indicative of a company that's made up it's mind to downgrade snowsports incrementally. The result, as Brian correctly points out, is that demand is reduced and this further fuels the company's move away from it's old core function. The Lady and it's tow is a symbol of Cairngorm and important just for that, to seemingly make no effort to safeguard it's future speaks volumes to me about how the company views snowsports in general.
I returned to Cairngorm a couple of seasons ago after an absence of many, many years and was 'surprised' by what I saw in terms of neglect of infrastructure/lack of investment. I was one of those in "queue city" in the Ciste at Easter 2006, standing for almost an hour with the old chairs behind me left unused because of CML's core lifts policy, this for most people was before having to queue for a further 30 minutes to an hour at the Cas ticket office and we were the lucky ones, many had been turned away at Glenmore because the mountain had supposedly reached capacity. Couple this with few challenging runs available and a creaking on mountain infrastructure (apart from the bits built for the funicular tourist trade) and my decision is to go elsewhere in future, most probably Nevis. I know I'm not the only one in this position to be honest and how many more are put off before they even go?
Last edited by After all it is free  on Fri 13-07-07 14:44; edited 1 time in total
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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One possibily that has been suggested by Alan is that the WL tow is converted to a chair - using the now uneeded chairs from the Ciste Chair. Both the motor and the cable are suited to this (according to Alan). It would just need work on the bullwheel and the loading and unloading areas. Then the WL tow could be used when the run is complete but the track isn't.
CML are daft if they don't fix the WL tow as given decent conditions on the Lady - which happened in both 04/05 and 05/06 they won't have enough uplift to actually make decent money.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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Its a shame and the WL run is not adequetely served by the M1 tow and train for the following reasons:
1) Given decent snow (which we had in both 04/05 and 05/06) the full length of the burn course will be skiable and the East Lady will be skiable. Both of these deliver you to the start of the WL tow - presumably why it was put where it is! To get to the M1 or the train require either uphill skiing or taking a different, shorter route down the run.
2) On busy days the M1 develops long queues and the train is infrequent, and may well be full from the bottom or if conditions are good may not be making middle stops.
3) Their can be stoppages on the M1 (specially when people who can't read the no beginners sign try it and pull the cable of the first tower) this can allow horrendous queues to build even on quiet days. The WL tow can then be run to stop this happening.
4)When we get good snow the uplift capacity without the WL tow will be insufficient to allow a good experience for large numbers of people. CML need this extra capacity for busy days so they can capitalise on good days.
Dave - a Cairngorm season ticket holder who is about to post off this years season ticket form who unfortunatley lives too far away from Nevis or Glencoe. I'll also probably end up doing a lot more touring on busy days and just use my season ticket to get up the hill on those days (naughty Dave  )
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| Quote: |
How can you staff a mountain, its restaurants, ski patrol and everything else when you don't know if there will be snow?
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Volunteers ?
Could the operation of the White Lady tow, probably the most famous skilift in Britain, be leased to a ski club ?
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| Quote: |
How can you staff a mountain, its restaurants, ski patrol and everything else when you don't know if there will be snow?
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Its not easy, but this year we had continuous snow cover from mid Dec untill it closed in April ( or was that May). It often wasn't great cover with just the Ptarmigan bowl and the traverse and Cas to the top of the Gunbarrell. Though the days when the Daylodge run was full of big drifts it wasn't pisted out (problems with access for the piste machine according to Bob) which didn't help. The train does mean that they have a backbone of none skiing tourists to provide some income on no/poor snow days. Also I've been told that tourist numbers are better in winter when there is skiing and the tourists can leave the Ptarmigan building.
One of the big problems this season was that a lot of days (28ish) were lost to high winds including something like 6 weekends over the busy time of the season. Those weekends lost probably knocked 10-20k skier days from the totals.
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You know it makes sense.
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While there was a problem with adverse weather last season, at least an equal factor is that CML can't close the hill fast enough if they think they can justify not opening. CML's shortfall of 12,000 skier days with respect to their budget was unnecessary and wasn't down to conditions or weather, it was down to the “do nothing” attitude of the operating company, that 12,000 could easily have been attained.
In two years at Kirkwood there wasn't a single StormBound day, despite record breaking snow storms in 2005, and I can tell you there were plenty of days that CML would have happily closed the Glenmore Gates and gone home. Kirkwood gets endless blue sky days and has no need to make such efforts to open, yet they always did the absolute maximum possible on any given day, CML does the absolute least it can possibly get away with.
As a case in point after being StormBound (with good cause) on Saturday of the half-term weekend, when most English schools start half-term and local schools have their long weekend, they remained completely closed on Sunday not because the road was blocked, or because it was to stormy to operate, but because it would have been the busiest day of the season and they decided to keep the gates shut on the road so the staff could have a "smoother" build up to re-opening on Monday, instead of having to deal with crowds and opening up lifts on the Sunday. That's 3000-4000 skier days lost in one day alone, I lost count of the days runs like the M1 and White Lady were posted closed and roped off for CML's convenience and the number of days the M1 Poma could have been opened, but they didn't bother because the load ramp needed some work.
I could write a detailed essay here on countless incidents over the past 6 months where CML actively turned away and discouraged paying custom, you'd have thought an insolvent company might actually want money coming in? 
These are not just in Snowsports Terms, but I took some family members up the Funicular at the start of May who had never been up it before and on the way up the Funicular Attendant announced that both the Shop at the Top (at the Ptarmigan) and the Mountain Shop in the Cas Bar at the Daylodge were closed for the day for Stock Taking. Customer focused? No, a customer focused business and one with business sense would have either done the stock take out of hours, or done a dynamic stock take while trading, hell if a Tesco Extra can stock take while open a small shop like that can. At the very least they could have stock takes in one shop at a time, so at least one was open?
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Make no mistake, the Cairngorm ski region is typically British.
I.e. rubbish.
In my view, they have underinvested, underdeveloped, undersold, underpromoted and undermarketed their product for decades.
The lifts suck. The transport sucks. The facilities suck. The accommodation sucks. The service sucks. The website sucks.
And there are no snowguns.
The list of failure is almost endless.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Whitegold, that post is a classic of your genre.
That's a compliment by the way.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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^ I think those are excellent points there Winterhighland and indicative of the type of operation that's being run on Cairngorm these days. It's also a good insight into the reasons a great many people, myself included, now can't be bothered with Cairngorm and that's the reason the snowsports operation is going to enter a spiral of decline (if it's not already entered it and I suspect it may have).
Also consider how many people are posting in this thread - most I note also members of Winterhighland - again I'd suggest indicative of the fact that most people these days have had enough of CML and their do nothing antics and have chosen to go elsewhere. The saddest and most unfair aspect of this though is that IMHO it's also had an affect on the rest of the Scottish ski areas and their standing in as far as Cairngorm was/is viewed as the flagship Scottish ski area. Whether or not that was the case is I guess open to argument (particularly with Glencoe fans  ) but I don't think there can be any question that it's definitely not the case nowadays. As has been suggested elsewhere, and I'd concur, this torch has now been passed (or rather metaphorically chucked with arms flailing about!) from Cairngorm to Nevis - thankfully Nevis appear to be making a good stab at running their operation and are, as I recall, returning an operating profit - long may that continue!
IMHO the current situation with regards snowsports at Cairngorm is pretty scandalous, especially when you consider the amount of public money that's gone into CML over the years and the importance of the winter sports trade to the entire local area, but I see little prospect of this changing before things enter a terminal phase - elsewhere I've suggested 10/20 years but I now wonder if that's wasn't a wildly optimistic estimate!
Frankly snowsports operations at Cairngorm aren't, at least in any meaningful way, going to last all that long as things are and with no prospect of CML leaving the scene, despite their abysmal finances and enormous debts, and their 'other' trade now bringing in much more money I suspect the current situation will continue until the 'end'. 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Whitegold wrote: |
Make no mistake, the Cairngorm ski region is typically British.
I.e. rubbish.
In my view, they have underinvested, underdeveloped, undersold, underpromoted and undermarketed their product for decades.
The lifts suck. The transport sucks. The facilities suck. The accommodation sucks. The service sucks. The website sucks.
And there are no snowguns.
The list of failure is almost endless. |
LOL, actually I have to generally agree - when considering Cairngorm I'm always reminded of the BL/Austin-Rover/Rover fiasco in the Midlands where I think many of the same factors were at play, e.g. "underinvested, underdeveloped, undersold, underpromoted and undermarketed their product for decades"
Sadly in that case by the time they had some investment (from abroad) it was too late and I suspect Cairngorm may already be too far down the path of decline for anything but an absolutely enormous investment to make a difference... and frankly that aint gonna happen I'm afraid'!
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Newly came across this thread. I agree with Roga. Like David Goldsmith, I skied the Gorms for many years in the late 60's & 70's but now confine myself to Glencoe (first choice), Nevis & Glenshee in that order.
I would not dream of going anywhere near the Cairngorms not even if they had snow. A long drive (from Glasgow) to find massive queues, gates closed early for cars, no access from Ciste, no proper middle station, very touristy, overpriced & ancient equipment, funicular excepted and a feeling that skiers are just about tolerated.
I suppose you could argue that the funicular = massive debts but brings tourists = money = keep skiing going? With all these debts, does the skiing make a profit at all or would the finances be better without the skiing? Let's hear from the accountants (no need to know anything about skiing or exercise).
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Quote: |
| would the finances be better without the skiing |
Without the good snow that came for the second half of the 2005/06 season it would have been all over for CML. Even in a dire season snowsports customers still represent at least 50% of income and they now realise that they can not survive on the beginner market alone.
Another skier day figure like last seasons (38,000) would mean they could not last the winter, yet last season there was continual skiing even if limited and that is usually less damaging than stop/start. I suspect another factor that is underestimated is the numbers from the Central Belt who are not travelling because ski reports are no longer available early enough.
As for ski vs non-ski market, the summer Funicular tickets are more than 30% down on this time last year.
PS If anyones buying a season pass, buy it on a Credit Card.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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I am not surprised summer receipts are down. If it is still like when I went, you are not allowed out onto the mountain at the top - you have to look out through windows. Horrible. I'm not doing that again. I went straight down again and walked up.
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| Winterhighland wrote: |
| Without the good snow that came for the second half of the 2005/06 season it would have been all over for CML. Even in a dire season snowsports customers still represent at least 50% of income and they now realise that they can not survive on the beginner market alone. |
These aren't the figures CML present in their "A Vision for the Future" document though where they suggest wintersports are a smaller, but still I guess significant, 26% of earnings. On page 13, under the heading "Snow-Sports" you can see the following:
| CML - A Vision for the Future wrote: |
In 2005/06, CML sold 55,000 ski days, representing 27% of total paying visitors and 26% of total sales income.
For the foreseeable future (through climate scenario modelling up until 2080) (Essuary: 2006)26, there will be some snow cover on the ski field area each year. Unfortunately, it is impossible to predict if there will be enough cover to facilitate snow-sports. Spreading the risk of setting-up for snow-sports provision by diversification into a new core product is a priority for the vision. This will allow opportunistic snow-sports to continue to provide a valuable revenue source for the company - and for the local economy - while minimising the financial risk. |
Overall IMHO that document seems to represent a plan to further downgrade snowsports on the mountain.
Anyway, Winterhighland are you suggesting these official figures published by CML are wrong?
| Quote: |
| Another skier day figure like last seasons (38,000) would mean they could not last the winter, yet last season there was continual skiing even if limited and that is usually less damaging than stop/start. I suspect another factor that is underestimated is the numbers from the Central Belt who are not travelling because ski reports are no longer available early enough. |
That's got to be a factor but I'd argue there are other highly significant factors, all of them mentioned by handyman above:
| handyman wrote: |
| massive queues, gates closed early for cars, no access from Ciste, no proper middle station, very touristy, overpriced & ancient equipment, funicular excepted and a feeling that skiers are just about tolerated. |
| Winterhighland wrote: |
| As for ski vs non-ski market, the summer Funicular tickets are more than 30% down on this time last year. |
Must be the bad weather affecting the tourist market, sounds like they'll have a crisis if this carries on... but then if they do go down another company/organisation might just step in and it'd be unencumbered by their massive debts and might just be able to invest in all the equipment that's needed to get the mountain working properly again... just musing
| Quote: |
| PS If anyones buying a season pass, buy it on a Credit Card. |
Sounds like good advice to me - refunds when companies go bankrupt are always easier if you've paid with a credit card!!
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Roga,
I'd be interested in how CML calculated the figure, but my guess is they took snowsports ticket sales as a % of total sales. They may have also counted in ski hire sales aswell (or may not), but I'm pretty certain they haven't counted in the snowsports spend in the shop and cafe, as that would be much harder to split out and would make the snowsport custom more important. I'm not sure how high snowsport customers spend is compared with tourists. We are there longer, but are more likely to bring our own food. For example I ussually have a beer at lunchtime and sometimes coffee before I go, but thats it.
My guess sales are down this summer because of the nice weather we've been having - who wants to go up the train when all you can see from the top is a different view of the dark grey clouds and rain .
| Quote: |
to find massive queues, gates closed early for cars, no access from Ciste, no proper middle station, very touristy, overpriced & ancient equipment, funicular excepted and a feeling that skiers are just about tolerated.
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To be fair the massive queues and gates closed early are very infrequent - as far as I know it only happened one weekend recently in the 05/06 season. Most of this season just gone you could have ski'ed with virtually no queues from December to April. There were bad queues the weekend the Ciste tow was broken, but that was fixed asap. I was there that weekend, but headed off over the back when it got busy.
Season ticket form sent off, paying by credit card, not had a reply yet so they haven't taken my money so far.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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| Quote: |
| In 2005/06, CML sold 55,000 ski days, representing 27% of total paying visitors and 26% of total sales income. |
Roga, as I understand it the Ski Tickets represented 26% of income, skiers though tend to also eat, shop, take lessons, hire equipment etc.
The basis of the Vision is that CML will offer a minimal and opportunistic snowsports operation when it's convenient, it will be a 'service' that we apparently should be grateful for as they will have removed the capacity and infrastructure to operate a commercially viable snowsports area.
Threadbo in Australia has with the installation of snowmaking increased the number of days skiable to the base from an average of 19 to over 100+ a season. It would be nice to get some detailed stats on the base climate to compare to here as from what I've come across so far with base temperatures often into the teens, keeping the lower Supertrail open through the season would be akin to keeping a skiable link to Glenmore open on CairnGorm Mountain in peak season!
Also a number of detailed research papers have been done for/by the snowsports industry in Australia on climate impacts, snow making and how to make best use of what they've got, including a detailed study of the projected density of snow making capacity needed to maintain snowsports at each resort under different warming levels, a warmer climate reduces the total period of snow making windows, thus higher intensity snow making is required to be able to produce the same theoretical maximum volume.
Here we simply don't know enough about the present and past mountain climate in the ski areas to evaluate snowmaking potential, let alone start modelling climate change impacts
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| Quote: |
Here we simply don't know enough about the present and past mountain climate in the ski areas to evaluate snowmaking potential, let alone start modelling climate change impacts
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And if CML had actually set up some monitoring several years ago we would now have enough info to base a snowmaking desicion on. Instead they decided at the time that it wasn't worth doing as it would take several years to collect enough data. Several years have now past
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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If it is still cold enough to snow naturally on the mountain, then it is cold enough to run manmade snowguns.
They can blast away up top, day and night, then drag it down the mountain where needed.
They should put a roof over the last few hundred meters down to the base station. This will protect against sun and rain and help the snow last longer.
Most of the world's resorts already run on fake snow. It is embarrassing that Cairngorm has still not joined the party, a full 20 years after it first became clear natural snow was in shorter supply.
The indecision is painful. They simply need to bite the bullet and bang out some snowguns.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| Dave Horsley wrote: |
| To be fair the massive queues and gates closed early are very infrequent - as far as I know it only happened one weekend recently in the 05/06 season. Most of this season just gone you could have ski'ed with virtually no queues from December to April. There were bad queues the weekend the Ciste tow was broken, but that was fixed asap. I was there that weekend, but headed off over the back when it got busy. |
Fair point there but the important thing is that the perception is there and that puts people off - I'd guess this is based on times, like the weekend in 05/06, when many more people than usual make an effort to head there and get faced by closed gates. With no counter message coming from CML (adverts, coherent PR etc.) there's no way to negate that perception so people stay away. There have also been the times when CML, apparently for their own convenience, have closed the mountain, see Winterhighland's comments above, and that's no way to run any company, let alone one that's on it's last legs.
| Winterhighland wrote: |
| Roga, as I understand it the Ski Tickets represented 26% of income, skiers though tend to also eat, shop, take lessons, hire equipment etc. |
But surely any figure over and above the 26% is supposition without official estimates?
What we can surmise though is that CML in quoting the 26% figure are probably under-reporting snowsports revenue, that says a lot about their agenda IMHO, it also says a lot about their ability to competently analyse where their revenue is coming from and base policy on maximising what has been their core market.
| Quote: |
| The basis of the Vision is that CML will offer a minimal and opportunistic snowsports operation when it's convenient, it will be a 'service' that we apparently should be grateful for as they will have removed the capacity and infrastructure to operate a commercially viable snowsports area. |
Perhaps fine for the *odd* local but for the rest of the country a complete waste of time I'd suggest and a recipe to speed decline further.
| Quote: |
Threadbo in Australia has with the installation of snowmaking increased the number of days skiable to the base from an average of 19 to over 100+ a season. It would be nice to get some detailed stats on the base climate to compare to here as from what I've come across so far with base temperatures often into the teens, keeping the lower Supertrail open through the season would be akin to keeping a skiable link to Glenmore open on CairnGorm Mountain in peak season!
Also a number of detailed research papers have been done for/by the snowsports industry in Australia on climate impacts, snow making and how to make best use of what they've got, including a detailed study of the projected density of snow making capacity needed to maintain snowsports at each resort under different warming levels, a warmer climate reduces the total period of snow making windows, thus higher intensity snow making is required to be able to produce the same theoretical maximum volume.
Here we simply don't know enough about the present and past mountain climate in the ski areas to evaluate snowmaking potential, let alone start modelling climate change impacts |
| Dave Horsley wrote: |
| And if CML had actually set up some monitoring several years ago we would now have enough info to base a snowmaking desicion on. Instead they decided at the time that it wasn't worth doing as it would take several years to collect enough data. Several years have now past |
Typically they've failed to make investments and plans well ahead of the issue becoming critical.
| Whitegold wrote: |
| Most of the world's resorts already run on fake snow. It is embarrassing that Cairngorm has still not joined the party, a full 20 years after it first became clear natural snow was in shorter supply. |
Oh absolutely, I totally agree and I recall people arguing for snowmaking as far back as the 80s, since then every opportunity has been missed, a massive debt has been built up and the numbers of skiers on the hill continues to fall (for reasons I think that are all mentioned above).
| Quote: |
| The indecision is painful. They simply need to bite the bullet and bang out some snowguns. |
I'm afraid that as far as I can see they have neither the will nor the resources to do this now, they've missed the boat completely and it's far to late as long as CML, given the state of their finances, is in charge.
The company is now only involved (much like MG Rover) in a desperate bid to save itself, whilst seemingly forgetting what it's original purpose was, but I see little hope in scaling down the business in order to survive - in fact I only see eventual collapse (much like MG Rover) as the end point of this. As said above this is pretty 'classic' British stuff when it comes to failing industries and we've seen the results enough times to be realistic about the outcome have we not?
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> Here we simply don't know enough about the present and past mountain climate in the ski areas
> to evaluate snowmaking potential
Yup - some kind of snow making trial is required...
Before anyone can say, for sure, if snow making would be worthwhile
Only one thing is certain, installing high pressure snow making equipment on a mountain is expensive.
I am personally not convinced it will be benefcial - we ski on drifted snow in Scotland. Ski runs such as coire cas etc rely on strong winds drifting the snow into the gully's - filling them to depths of 10/20 feet. These deep accumulations then survive the inevitable mild periods. Will a couple of snow cannons make much difference to this process ? I guess the answer is that no one currently really knows for sure.
Doug.
p.s
Skiing in Scotland has never been an alternative to the alps.
Its about getting out on the hills - whatever the conditions. And skiing the entire hill - wither it be 3 foot of powder or blue water ice. Get out there, and get on with it....
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You know it makes sense.
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| Haggis_Trap wrote: |
Yup - some kind of snow making trial is required...
Before anyone can say, for sure, if snow making would be worthwhile
Only one thing is certain, installing high pressure snow making equipment on a mountain is expensive. |
Yup I agree and that's the problem, the cost of it is now beyond CMLs means I suspect.
| Quote: |
| I am personally not convinced it will be benefcial - we ski on drifted snow in Scotland. Ski runs such as coire cas etc rely on strong winds drifting the snow into the gully's - filling them to depths of 10/20 feet. These deep accumulations then survive the inevitable mild periods. Will a couple of snow cannons make much difference to this process ? I guess the answer is that no one currently really knows for sure. |
Very good point and I don't disagree but I have a suspicion that laying down a base in somewhere like, for example, the gunbarrel with snow cannon would work if it was then supplemented by the 'real' stuff but, as you say, it'd need trials to test the viability of it. Alan (Winterhighland) has experience of this kind of thing and has some pretty compelling views on the matter.
| Quote: |
| Skiing in Scotland has never been an alternative to the alps. |
Oh I dunno, I remember a time in the 70s and 80s when it was seen as a reasonable alternative by some but again I don't disagree in as far as it's very 'different' to what you get in the Alps but in some ways I prefer it that way
It's a great alternative to dry or indoor slopes though, IMHO far preferable overall.
| Quote: |
| Its about getting out on the hills - whatever the conditions. And skiing the entire hill - wither it be 3 foot of powder or blue water ice. Get out there, and get on with it.... |
Aye, that indeed is true, as your site ably attests
I should add for the record, and for those that don't know, that The Lecht have rudimentary snow making equipment but neither Glencoe or Nevis have anything yet - anyone know if they have any plans for trials or have run trials?
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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If you put some manual fan guns on Cairngorm you will be able to make snow with them during the course of a winter, infact if you set up some manual fan guns outside the four seasons hotel in Aviemore you could be certain on some occasions you would be able to make snow.
That though doesn't tell us a whole lot, firstly we don't have the data to make an informed choice about what sort of systems or combination of systems to use, let alone the strategies for using them. There are just so many different scenarios to consider and using forecasts to model thaws could be as critical as modeling snow making windows.
About the only thing we can be sure of is that today to be worthwhile anything other than a handful of cannons would have to be automated. If the snowmaking window kicks in at 2am and there's no staff on the hill till 8am, the snow guns are no use to anyone, and having enough staff on site just in case to man handle a large manual system would have huge operational costs.
Need data, data, data. It would also be useful to try and survey snowsports customers during the next winter or two with a view to determining their benchmarks used for deciding whether to ski or not. For example if the Traverse and Zig Zags had been kept complete ensuring a complete top to middle route through the bulk of the season the skier day figure would have improved considerably. Researching this would assist in assessing the economics of snow making in terms of forecasting potential increase in skier days.
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Poster: A snowHead
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^ I totally agree with all of that, but being frank with CML in charge it just isn't gonna happen is it?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I like the example of cml been compared to MG Rover , perhaps the Chinese with their foreign investment programme could be hodwinked in to buying cairngorm because if they are daft enough to buy lame duck Rover Cml should be consided a perfect investmet.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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The average temp at the top of Cairngorm is around -1c from Dec to Mar. It is plenty cold enough up high.
They should immediately install dozens of snowguns near the summit. Blast away day and night. Then drag it down to the mid and low runs.
Job done.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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Whitegold, there was plenty snow up top, above the Traverse, on the upper White Lady etc that could have been dragged down the mountain to maintain links to the middle etc without any need for snow making last season, but they just didn't do it. You might ask, whats the point of spending ££££££££ on snow making when you fail to make best use of the snow they do get?
That said, I sense that just possibly last seasons skier day figure gave CML a real scare and was a wake up call to the fact they can not survive as a 'beginner area', which is where they had been saying their market lay. That CML now conceed they also need and therefore must cater for better intermediates and more advanced skiers and boarders to survive is at least progress of sorts.
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the only days I spent at Cairngorm last year were 26th November (only skied up top but it was the first weekend of the season) and 2 days over Christmas- I spent Christmas in Aviemore (again I didn't ski down to mid station)
I was never tempted enough to go back all season M1 and White Lady were "advertised" as closed- my other 15 days in Scotland were spent at Nevis.
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| tomf wrote: |
| I like the example of cml been compared to MG Rover , perhaps the Chinese with their foreign investment programme could be hodwinked in to buying cairngorm because if they are daft enough to buy lame duck Rover Cml should be consided a perfect investmet. |
LOL, well what they've actually done, and quite cleverly IMHO, is let the company collapse and then grab all the design and engineering assets which, believe it or not, are actually pretty valuable - the problem with Rover wasn't what came off the drawing board but the rubbish that was built for years at the behest of management. They've also been smart enough to realise that it's MG that's valuable and that's the marque they're basing production on, again IMHO a smart move. Apologies I'm a bit anal on that one... 
Anyway, back to skiing:
| Winterhighland wrote: |
| Alright here is a rumour to put the cat amongst the pigeons (or should that be ptarmigan). It has been suggested to me that Hilton (the hotel group) are exploring ownership of the Cairngorm Estate and CML. |
That actually doesn't seem like such a crazy idea to me, linking resort accommodation and snowsports infrastructure is something that's been done to good affect in North America (Intrawest) and I'm told that it's helped to make some resorts more viable than they otherwise might have been. It may just present a way out of the current mess if proven correct!
| Winterhighland wrote: |
| Whitegold, there was plenty snow up top, above the Traverse, on the upper White Lady etc that could have been dragged down the mountain to maintain links to the middle etc without any need for snow making last season, but they just didn't do it. You might ask, whats the point of spending ££££££££ on snow making when you fail to make best use of the snow they do get? |
It's a fair question and one that personally I think highlights the inept way the mountain is currently being run.
| Quote: |
| That said, I sense that just possibly last seasons skier day figure gave CML a real scare and was a wake up call to the fact they can not survive as a 'beginner area', which is where they had been saying their market lay. That CML now conceed they also need and therefore must cater for better intermediates and more advanced skiers and boarders to survive is at least progress of sorts. |
Well it's what they've been told for a while isn't it but I just wonder if it's too little too late!
| II wrote: |
the only days I spent at Cairngorm last year were 26th November (only skied up top but it was the first weekend of the season) and 2 days over Christmas- I spent Christmas in Aviemore (again I didn't ski down to mid station)
I was never tempted enough to go back all season M1 and White Lady were "advertised" as closed- my other 15 days in Scotland were spent at Nevis. |
Yup, sounds about right - as said a while ago Nevis appears to be the preferred destination in Scotland now.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Now been confirmed that CML will not be fixing the White Lady Tow for the 2008 season, however it won't be dismantled or removed, so will expected to left in situ as is. Also it wont be canabolised to keep other tows going, indeed much of the equipment is not compatable with the other still operational Mueller T-bars .
Bill from the Glenmore Shop along with Alan Brattey (Olderalan on WH forum) have set up a "Cherished Uplift Fund" initially with a view to raising funds to possibly speed up the fixing of the Lady Tow.
Will update with more on that with respect to latest developments as soon as I have more info.
See http://www.winterhighland.info/forum/read.php?2,65299,page=95
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I hope they are going to do something with the cable. Last time I saw it it was just draped any old fashion where it had fallen. Presumably they should either remove it, or put it back up on the sheaves otherwise it will deteriorate left as is.
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FAQ
