 Poster: A snowHead
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Cairngorm Mountain, Britain's best-known ski area, is advertising for a new chief executive following the departure of Bob Kinnaird (now running nearby Glenmore Lodge) last December. Since then, Cairngorm has been run by interim chief executive Ian Whitaker.
Cairngorm's boom years in the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s have been followed by two decades of snow problems, and the heavily-subsidised construction of the funicular railway which replaced the original two-stage chairlift to the Ptarmigan. The mountain now faces a multitude of financial and managerial challenges to serve skiers (and other visitors) during a likely continuation of climate change.
This report from The Press and Journal, Aberdeen
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In May last year, Highlands and Islands Enterprise was forced to take the company into public ownership to prevent it from collapsing. The move came as the company was hampered from pursuing plans to diversify its operations in the face of a declining ski market.
It was claimed that an excessive debt had been incurred through its investment in the £20million railway, which was opened in 2001. |
Can you think of someone who might be up for this? (seriously!). My visit to Cairngorm a week ago proved that the place still attracts huge demand when the snow falls ... meaning a substantial challenge to running the hill in that kind of situation.
The salary isn't quoted in the above item. Will try to find out.
Any comments on this?
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Mon 23-02-09 13:05; edited 2 times 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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Here's the job advert and specifications:
http://www.odgersrayberndtson.com/index.php?id=819&L=9&guid=26963
Salary stated to be "£60,000 pa, use of all facilities and staff discounts."
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| CairnGorm Mountain Ltd last year enabled 62,000 people to experience the mountain environment travelling on board Scotland's only funicular railway. |
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| The increasingly unpredictable and unreliable winters have meant that planning based on the historical winter market had to be revised and a new "reduced reliance on snow" plan was introduced in May 2004. |
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| ... the facility is currently being prepared for the appointment of a new operating company with a brand new direction to ensure its year-round, long term profitability in the face of climate change. |
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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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The "reduced reliance on snow" otherwise officially known as the "core lifts policy" or in-reality managed decline hasn't worked, the capacity of the mountain has been reduced such that now CML simply can't put the numbers on the mountain to make the £££££s when the conditions come good. The full carparks during half term was somewhat illusionary, in that the carparks were used in a manor which put a significant dent in the actual capacity (3 rows instead of 4 in the Ciste, parking rows longways instead of nose in parking in the lower Cas and parts of the upper Cas carpark).
Business logic says that carrying capacity for occasional peaks is inefficient, what CML has discovered the hard way is that a smaller capacity might be more efficient but if they can't make the money from snowsports when the opportunity arises the business can't survive - that's the nature of a snowsports area and a business that is so entirely weather dependent (year round).
Be it an outbreak of good weather in summer or good snow conditions in winter, CML has to be able to respond like turning on a switch. Taking 3 or 4 days to gear the business up isn't an option. This aspect more than any other and how to manage it as efficiently as possible will be the biggest challenge on the mountain. Snowsports areas are labour intensive to run, a more flexibile approach to staffing and use of stand by casual staff (who are trained in certain aspects of operations) such as past employees who can drive piste bashers, run a ski tow, staff the ticket office, help in catering and increased use of volunteers who get free skiing in return for agreeing to do so many days work probably have a bigger role to play.
No doubt it would be far more easy to manage the business if it were just the Funicular and Top Basin ski tows, rumour has it that's where they were aiming for. However running a snowsports area in Scotland is the wrong business to be in if your wanting an easy to manage company.
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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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| Winterhighland wrote: |
| ... the capacity of the mountain has been reduced such that now CML simply can't put the numbers on the mountain to make the £££££s when the conditions come good ... |
Are you saying that's because all the car parks were jammed full, or because the uplift was jammed to capacity? The Ciste carpark wasn't full when I was there, but there was about a 30-min queue for the shuttle bus (and anyone getting off that would then have to queue for the funicular!).
It was quite interesting to observe the hill last week. The lower level tows had no queues, but the funicular had a long one (somebody said an hour's wait). I imagine there were big numbers on the Ptarmigan lifts, but I never got up there because all the hire skis in Aviemore had run out!
I assume they have an upper limit on the number of lift passes sold, and have the usual concern of emptying the Ptarmigan plateau at the end of the day, or when the weather goes bad.
Are you saying that the number of daily lift passes sold is limited to a level that's actually below the old days when the chairlift took people up and the While Lady/West Wall lifts were all working?
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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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I will apply for the position.
First, I will coat the mountain in snowguns.
Then I will plant loads of trees for wind-protection.
Then I will ship over some Poles to give better customer service.
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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, that has to be the funniest post I've seen in ages, and yet I suspect you meant it to be serious...
Snow-making kit would stand idle due to high temperatures and high winds, even if they got permission to install them, which wouldn't happen.
Trees planted in May would be dead by December due to the winds. There isn't enough soil to hold them in place either. The reason that geographers and glaciologists refer to the "tree line" is that anything above that cannot grow, no matter what you try to do. The level is lower in Scotland than in the Alps because of several factors, mainly wind, and lack of high-level soil which is due to the geology (and the wind).
Customer service is about training, salary and morale. Not where you come from, although the different economic and social circumstances do give the Poles a head start in some areas. But then I thought you were anti-immigration, and wanted everyone sent home?
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Most challenging position in British skiing?
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Er, the good old missionary takes some doing  - especially with you both on old school 197cm jobbies.....
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Whitegold,
I'm with you.
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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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| Snow-making kit would stand idle due to high temperatures and high winds, |
Not so. A very common misconception even within parts of the industry. The number of hours the wet bulb temperature was below the -1.3c start up point for ratnik sky giant (low energy air/water guns) at 2500ft on CairnGorm SO FAR THIS SEASON stands at 1304 hours.
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| even if they got permission to install them, which wouldn't happen. |
That would be for the Highland Council as Planning Authority to decide. There is nothing against snow making in the planning guidelines and the Scottish Executive NPPG (National Planning Policy Guidelines) for snowsports supports redevelopment of snowsports facilities on CairnGorm Mountain. There is sufficient water flow that it may well be possible to develop a water management system for snowmaking that can work in reverse providing small scale hydro power at other times. Many ski areas would kill for the potential water resources around CairnGorm !
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| Trees planted in May would be dead by December due to the winds. |
Some might, but the same goes for trees planted anywhere, not all will survive. Trees actually grow all the way up to and on the Plateau, trouble is they stand less than a few inches tall, so not much good for wind sheltered tree skiing! 
For all practical purposes though the natural tree line varies between 1600 and 1900ft depending on exposure in that part of the world. Above that natives trees will grow, but very very slowly and not to any significant height, giving a sparse montaine scrub zone.
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Winterhighland, the temperature may have been below -1.3C for 1304 hours this season, but if snowmaking kit had been available, what difference would that have made to the coverage? I'd love to believe that it could work, but my suspicion is that most of it would end up somewhere over Aberdeen, or perhaps being relocated to Nevis, given the propensity for winds in Scotland to "blow a bit"...
Plus this season is exceptional in recent years - the requirement for snowmaking is there this year to keep the pistes topped up and to help cover thinner patches, but it would really come into its own in ensuring more skier days each year, for which it needs to be capable of running for maybe 400 hours per month, without significant loss of cover in between. No-one wants to make snow just so it can blow away 2 days later, or turn to sludge and run off the mountain.
As for the planning process, I have my doubts over whether they would agree to snowmaking in the face of the inevitable arguments about how "green" snowmaking is, especially in such a sensitive area. The Scottish press would also see it as an easy target, a chance to kick the polluting middle and upper class in order to sell more chip wrappers, despite that being far from the truth.
One of my 'O' grade geography projects was on the Scottish mountain environment, why the tree line was where it was, and why the snow cover is so variable, and of course the answer was that the climate has too much variation to retain the snow, while the winds were severe enough to decapitate anything which stuck its head over the parapet. I'd love to see it happen and be reliable, but that needs climate change rather than snowmaking. Still, what everyone forgets is that "global warming" is not actually forecast to increase temperatures everywhere, and a shift in the gulf stream may result in Scotland being much colder in winter 
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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They could build a series of wind farms up the mountain to take the power out of the wind and allow the trees to grow.
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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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Savage thaws may indeed follow a period of prolonged snow making, but what matters is if having that extra snow to melt allows the established base to survive the thaw. This is the key to the equation, the extent to which snow making has the potential to smooth out fluctuations and also to allow a swift bounce back.
Thus to some extent snow making here would be replicating a natural phenomenon. High winds focus natural snow into stream beds, gullies and other natural snow fields to depths far in excess of the depth of snow that actually falls. This allows these natural snow fields to persist through prolonged thaw periods that would wipeout a general all over even cover of snow. The Cas Gunbarrel yesterday is a case in point:
The run is by Alpine Motorway standards narrow, but there's over 5feet of snow below that boarder.
The run from the foot of the Cas Gunbarrel to the Daylodge mostly narrow with only 350ft of vertical, but being skiable to the Daylodge or not is a widely used benchmark by people to decide whether to go skiing or not. Given the small area of the run covering it with a reasonable density of snowmaking capacity would allow substantial depths to be built up in relatively modest time scales.
It is possible to model the thaw rate of the snow that could theoretically be produced as well as predict the number of hours that snow making could be made. It is therefore possible to work out the technical viability of and density of snowmaking required to survive thaws of differing severity. This info in turn can help model the economic case for or against.
At this point of this season, today the difference would be a decent quality of run to the Daylodge vs a few narrow strips of slush left by the fences. Round the other side of the world in a climate also considered marginal for snowsports, at Thredbo Australia, snow making has increased the average number of days skiable to the base of the ski area from 19 to over 100 days a season.
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Winterhighland, fair points - I'll be interested to see the results if the modelling looks favourable and it ever happens. If successful, it would indeed make a major difference.
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FAQ
