Nevis Range – cutting back on winter opening

I’ve just seen a message from Nevis Range on Facebook and found it here too: Nevis Website

They’re cutting back on winter opening and not starting winter sports until February. The tone of it is pretty gloomy as well.

These changes aren’t about cutting back—they’re about survival.

Fingers crossed for a good season!

Sad, but sadly not surprising news.

Scottish DH skiing just needs to be allowed to die. Trying to keep these places open just prolongs the agony and the environmental damage.

They invested significantly in a snow making plant that has never produced anything like the volume of manmade snow projected.

It will take a significant amount of energy and water too.

Sad news.

They invested significantly in a snow making plant that has never produced anything like the volume of manmade snow projected.

It will take a significant amount of energy and water too.

Don’t know the figures for the Nevis range but a friend who worked at the Lecht said a night’s snow making costs them £2K. They are often making a nights worth of snow knowing the takings the next day won’t cover it but unless they keep the nursery slopes at least open their reputation has gone and there will be no bookings.

It’s hard to justify economically and environmentally. Ski touring is just about viable if skiers are sufficiently flexible with their timing and athletic to find the snow. But without the piste slopes to learn on there won’t be a next generation of ski tourers.

To me, I don’t think a few lifts on a hillside is environmentally damaging enough to condemn the industry – but the lack of snow might be a killer blow.

Purely selfishly, I like the cycle trails from the gondola and would like to see them continue. I’m not sure if they are feasible in the absence of a ski season.

I think they’d be able to have a good go at keeping the gondola. Bus loads of people paying for a return trip and having something to eat/drink in the cafe is their big summertime earner

I do think, and have said for a good few years, that Scottish skiing is dying due to climate change, and anyone involved or investing was throwing good money away.

The climate will not sustain 5 centres through summer season and iffy snow season, and all of them look pretty ropey and run down these days.

I agree that it is time to move on from skiing in Scotland.

As a regular in the past it’s incredibly sad but I’m frankly surprised they are still there at all

It’s a great area, I’ve had some of my best ski days there despite it being small.

But looks across Europe, there are resorts closing all over. My normal ski season pre COVID was spent in places you’d never heard of in 2 or 3 lift backcountry resorts, all day powder and barely another skier. They are all going the same way with massively reduced opening hours at best.

It seems incredible now that there was once quite serious plans to develop Ben wyvis as a ski area. It wouldn’t cross your mind nowadays.

Some one needs to develop an e-ski to slow access when end where the snow is, without infrastructure

The climate will not sustain 5 centres through summer season and iffy snow season, and all of them look pretty ropey and run down these days.

There was an analysis that showed the Cairngorms (and CM in particular) was likely to see the last remnants of any skiiing in Scotland – and probably even that not surviving past 2035. I suspect that would also require moving all of the infrastructure further up the hill or actually having a working uplift (and downlift) system in place.

the Cairngorms (and CM in particular) was likely to see the last remnants of any skiiing in Scotland – and probably even that not surviving past 2035

Due to no snow or just not enough snow to make ski fields viable on Cairn Gorm?

I’m pretty sure we’ll continue to see snow on the tops of the mountains for many years, but it’ll not be regular or sufficient enough for ski uplift. I reckon there will always be a few hardy souls who will wander/skin up in search of even the smallest patch.

(AMOC collapse notwithstanding)

Scottish skiing industry is an under discussed aspect of AMOC collapse in the academic literature, although I suspect it may have only a brief hiatus before the access routes are buried all year round under 1/2 mile of ice and trade switches to the newly created South Downs and Weald ski centres.

Brief explanation of AMOC for those who are interested.

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/amoc.html

We get more ski days in Weardale than I’ve seen on Nevisrange in the last few years. I’ve been tempted to schlep up to glenshee a few times, but never to fort bill. It just looks crap. It’s also ruinously expensive. I could jump on a squeezyjet to Geneva and have a long weekend in the alps for the price of a long weekend in Scotland.

i really hope they’re able to keep turnover high enough that they can stay on top of maintenance of the gondola. It’s an amazing resource.

I get the impression the gondola will remain viable, it goes like a train during the summer with coach parties etc, bikes are obviously a decent revenue stream since we buy day passes not single rides. But is that enough for a passenger only winter season and abandon all the ski stuff entirely/reduce to a vestige?

It still snows in Scotland? They’ve only just had the first snow on the top of Mt Fuji, and that’s a big mountain.

With AMOC collapse,  I wouldn’t bother to drive to Scotland for skiing.

A decent day out on kinder and maybe some fun boarding around the edges would be preferable

With AMOC collapse, I wouldn’t bother to drive to Scotland for skiing.

You won’t be able to without a snow cat

I haven’t had reason to get a fat bike yet. Maybe this is my justification

It still snows in Scotland? They’ve only just had the first snow on the top of Mt Fuji, and that’s a big mountain.

It did in June when I was bikepacking in the Highlands…

I’m in the Borders and the last ‘proper’ snowy winter here was probably 2017.

Ironically, the winter of 2020/21 was the best for snow in Scotland for a long while, but everything was closed for COVID

And yesterday hit 19*c in far north…

Like intheborders I was camping near Loch Ness in June and surprised to see snow on the tops.

I suppose climate change makes snow more unpredictable.

Maybe they could make more of summer activitys. What about guided wildlife walks , Photography or geology?

It still snows in Scotland? They’ve only just had the first snow on the top of Mt Fuji, and that’s a big mountain.

Fuji is about 20 degrees further south than the highlands putting it on a similar latitude to parts of north Africa.

I’m surprised Glenshee hasn’t put in some mtb trails. They have one I think which is used for DH races but the chairlift runs most of the year so would surely attract a reasonable number of riders (for it’s remote location) if there were some more runs. All the infrastructure is already there.

It’s worth pointing out that AMOC collapse is now regarded as pretty unlikely. I’m pretty sure skiing in Scotland won’t be a thing in my lifetime.

Meanwhile, in the western US…

Western U.S. Ski Resorts Are Getting Pummeled With Snow (With More on the Way)

There was a debate when Nevis Range was being planned that it would always be less snow sure than the east , but global warming has certainly done its thing

Of course Scotland has never really had a season. I remember being driven up there for races when I was a kid, and on the Friday night there would be loads f snow and forecast to stay. You would open the curtains the next day and it would be all gone .

The more recent management at Nevis lost interest in skiing a while back. Even when they had snow in recent years, they appeared not very interested in opening. I believe Nevis as a ski resort has never been very successful. As a punter from the large population centres, you need to drive past one or even 2 other ski areas to get there.

From the outside, the management appeared to make some interesting decisions. They sold their Hydro scheme with a steady income to pay for a snow making machine which they have barely ever used due to the energy cost! They appear beholden to HIE now just as has happened at Cairngorm. We all know how that one worked out!

Glencoe is a good example of what can be done still in Scotland and has seen an upsurge in market share from the other ski areas. They have remained flexible and can still make good money when the snow comes. The difficulty with stopping skiing is that skiers spend a lot more per head than other visitors and they potentially keep coming back.

dlr
Full Member

I’m surprised Glenshee hasn’t put in some mtb trails. They have one I think which is used for DH races but the chairlift runs most of the year so would surely attract a reasonable number of riders (for it’s remote location) if there were some more runs. All the infrastructure is already there.

Glenshee and the Lecht both have made fairly minor efforts and both of them seemed to go to some extent”well that hasn’t really worked so let’s not do it again”. Switching to a really attractive bike venue is a lot of work and a big commitment. And the locations are all bloody awful frankly. I think we’re going to move into a sort of awkward post-snow environment where all of the infrastructure was built in places that only made sense because of the chance of snow, so for all it seems obvious “build bike stuff here” in the end it has to be really, really good to draw enough people in to function.

(disclaimer, I’ve never ridden Glenshee, only marshalled an sda round there but I walked the track and it is basic. 2 minutes long and at least half of that is basically access track or ruts-and-grass, with a fairly short and burly manmade section in the middle (which looked excellent btw). I think the intent is to add to that over time and keep adding features and built sections but as it stands it’s a perfectly good short race track and they’ve done really well (the grassy/rut bits looked terrifying with people fully committed on race runs) but just not going to draw people in)

That’s not a criticism btw, it’s just a recognition that it’s really difficult. I’m not convinced it’s possible for all the skilift resorts to pivot enough to bikes to bring in an income that really pays off, certainly some of them have huge advantages not least existing trails. And some have huge disadvantages in terms of location, local environment, <ahem> management and controlling interests, or the brutal maths of “we are just barely staying afloat so we can’t afford to drop quarter of a million quid on bike tracks even if we were certain it would make us money” Maybe some sort of Glencoe-Nevis-Aviemore (Laggan) axis is most likely, in the same way that the welsh venues complement each other and make an “uplift holiday” practical?

Nevis is always going to be the big beast, obviously the scale has drawbacks of its own, there’s a minimum size to their daily ops but just the fact that they find it so difficult says a lot.