 Poster: A snowHead
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Britain's best-known ski mountain - Cairngorm - is to be sold by Highlands and Islands Enterprise, a government quango which inherited the 3500 acre estate. Approximately one third of the mountain is leased to Cairngorm Mountain Ltd which operates the lifts and manages the ski area.
There is now much speculation as to who the new owners will be, and what their future commitment to skiing on the mountain will be. Cairngorm has been the subject of fevered argument over conservation issues, skiing issues and uplift issues for several decades. Expansion of the ski area into the adjacent 'Lurchers Gully' was blocked after the golden years of skiing on the mountain in the 1960s and 1970s. The mountain, which is now part of a National Park, is now served by the recently-built funicular railway, which cost £19.7 million. This has generated further controversy but has led to an increase in non-skiing visitors.
Reports from The Scotsman and The Herald.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Someone suggested that Snowheads buy a Ski resort. Can we use the pay-pal accont 
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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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Who owns the ski company as opposed to the land?
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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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From Cairngorm Mountain's website:
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CairnGorm Mountain Ltd is the Company that operates the facilities on CairnGorm Mountain. Before 2001, it was known as the Cairngorm Chairlift Company Ltd and prior to 1978 it was known as Cairngorm Sports Development Ltd.
CairnGorm Mountain Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Cairngorm Mountain Trust. The Trust has no shareholders but has 50 members, these members receive no dividends or any other benefit from the Trust or CairnGorm Mountain Ltd. Any profit generated by CairnGorm Mountain Ltd's operational activities is reinvested in the maintenance and upkeep of the mountain facilities. |
More on http://www.cairngormmountain.com
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brian
brian
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Don't like the sound of that, the Ramblers sound like they're sharpening their claws already. No doubt there's some exciting moss that will need saving from us barbaric skiers 
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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You don't need to worry just about the ramblers - the RSPB will probably be interested and they have deeper pockets than the ramblers and are also likely to be anti skiing.
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Reading the link for the Scotsman, the RSPB were well against the railway being built in the first place. I'd back Fergus Ewing MSP, who said
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"It's essential that the new estate owners are committed to winter sports and the funicular. Under no circumstances should it fall into the hands of any of the conservation bodies who fought tooth and nail against the funicular."
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It sounds like he must be a skier and on our side
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Could be a boarder
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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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David Goldsmith, This is true 
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Well I am going to wade in here! The implications of this are many and varied, and a lot will rest on what if any obligation there is on the new owners to honour CML's (CairnGorm Mountain Limited) current lease, as they sold virtually all their infrastructure which they did own to HIE. A purchase of the land where the new owner may want a direct say in the running off or even wish to replace CML as operating company is a distinct possibility.
With regards to speculative bidders, the RSPB seems to be heading the list, followed by the National Park, a CML/community/skier buyout, and possibly MacDonald Hotels.
I have to say I am not automatically opposed to the purchase of the Mountain (and thus the infrastructure) by the RSPB, for one thing the RSPB has a vested interest in ending the closed system, as it has seriously affected their ability to provide easy access ranger lead walks/tours of the Loch Avon Reserve in summer, prior to the closure of the Chairlift, the RSPB was apparently not an insignificant summer customer of CML. Also it may come as a surprise, but an RSPB Scotland report into high level snowsports development, found that limited and sensitive upwards and Southern expansion of uplift facilities on CairnGorm Mountain was not necessarily contrary to the conservation aims of the Upper Loch Avon Reserve.
The RSPB has vast financial resources and could certainly mount a successful bid for the Estate, and be in a position to invest heavily in environmental reinstatement works and footpath maintenance in the Cairngorm Estate. The RSPB is also committed to the social well-being of communities in or around their estates, so a striping of facilities off the mountain is unlikely, not least because the costs would staggering. The RSPB was the proposer of the Glenmore Gondola, and CML did on completion of the funicular see this as a potential next stage, allowing removal of the upper road and Cas Carparks, which would have undoubted environmental gain and could be beneficial to snowsports. We are in interesting times.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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It guess if the RSPB took over Cairngorm and skiers promised to do lots of bird-spotting
there'd be no conflict.
Do they do bird seed in the Ptarmigan restaurant yet?
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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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David Goldsmith, Best slowly casseroled and served with a little redcurrant jelly. 
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You know it makes sense.
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Winterhighland, you've been too modest to link to the discussion on this on your own site. Allow me: http://www.winterhighland.info/forums/read.php?2,55443
I think there may be something in what you say. The RSPB would not, I would have thought, take a confrontational attitude to skiers and would - joking apart, above - work with them. I don't know whether skiing on Cairngorm is seen as a threat to the birdlife up there - I remember Ali Ross (then a BASI trainer, now based in Tignes) pointing out Ptarmigan to me in May 1975. It's essentially a question of keeping skiers out of nesting areas, presumably. The Scottish hills tend to be free of obvious boundaries. In Zermatt I've noticed that they make protected (mainly forest) areas very obvious by taping the boundaries with signs.
Hopefully the wildlife up on the 'gorm is still thriving. If the RSPB were to set up some binoculars and a special viewing platform, with lots of information, it would actually be really interesting for the public (skiers included).
Here's the RSPB website, where they carry the Cairngorm news (though it's just a link to the Scotsman story): http://www.rspb.org.uk
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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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Seemingly the RSPB is in land buying mode at the moment. In this area a perfectly good and profitable 700+ acre farm of arable and cattle is rumoured to have been bought by the RSPB, despite 3 local farmers who wished to buy the land to extend their farms making what would normally be acceptable offer's. Their comments on a charity using it's donation's to buy up farmland could not be repeated in this forum. Particularly as two of them have previously fallen out with the local RSPB field worker. 
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