Looking at Winterhighland I see that the West Wall and Coire na Ciste chairs have been taken down. I know they didn’t get much use as conditions were seldom good enough in the Coire but when conditions were good, skiing down the gully or the wall was a hell of a lot of fun. Reading the website I get the impression that the removal is a political issue that goes much deeper than just use or condition of the equipment. Are there any plans for a replacement?

Long, long story.

(A) The infrastructure was outdated and unsafe – also an eyesore. Skiing days/visits are down so it couldn’t be afforded.

(B) Natural Retreats (the operators) are only after summer visitors and are concentrating on that.

The truth lies somewhere between the two. There’s now a local community trust (of which I am a member) aiming to acquire the ski area and develop it for the community. That would include Coire na Ciste. There’s talk of mini-hydro, cycle tracks, more uplift etc.

Landward program regarding takeover here

I didn’t appreciate they were taking out the CnC and WW chairs. Shame, does leave it ripe for touring though.

I didn’t appreciate they were taking out the CnC and WW chairs

Have taken out.

It’s a difficult one. Many of those complaining are doing so because it’s removing the black runs and the more challenging terrain – and this is bad if you are a good skier. However, it would appear that the easier runs are more popular anyway. So, the decision has to be made as to where to spend the money. It’s the same argument played out at trail centres across the country.

Yeah just saw the photos, you’d think I noticed as I ran up there to the summit from Glenmore 2 weeks ago!

Agree on investment.I think their plan for the artificial slope and snowfarm gear is a good one frankly for snowsports. The terrain is still there and I suppose they could run a shuttle from the CnC ex-car park to the base as when the snows in you could get down there OK.

The infrastructure was outdated and unsafe

Only because it was allowed to fall into disrepair.

they could run a shuttle from the CnC ex-car park to the base

Where you’d then have to stand in the queue for that stupid funicular to get back up the mountain.

Really hope the community buyout scheme comes to something, and Cairngorm Mountain Ltd / Natural Retreats are run off the hill.
Until then, for any uplifted ski days that I have in Scotland I’ll be heading to Glenshee, Glencoe, Nevis, etc. CML/Natural Retreats won’t get a penny from me.

Where you’d then have to stand in the queue for that stupid funicular to get back up the mountain.

Day Lodge poma ftw (or whichever one it is with the dog-leg that goes from behind the funicular). Spent days doing loops of the mountain like that

Day Lodge poma ftw

Aye, when the snow gets down that far.

but if there is a decent amount of snow they’ll probably be digging out the funicular anyway 🙂

but if there is a decent amount of snow they’ll probably be digging out the funicular anyway

😆

Being less than an hour from Glenshee, I don’t have to suffer the vagaries of the funicular queues or the bus from the overflow car park all that often.

The dry slope is a daft idea. Who would drive all the way to Cairngorm to ski in a 100/200m dry slope that you could build ANYWHERE WITH A SLOPE, and certainly a lot closer to your target market.

Halfway up a mountain at the end of a 15 mile dead end road? Really?

Edit: And I am a season pass holder. An annoyed one at that. There is a lot of potential at CG, and development is not a bad thing, if done properly.

People who have booked a holiday and committed to going to Aviemore is who

what’s happening at Cairngorm?

Basically the management at CG have been running the place into the ground over the last 22 years (possibly more, I woudn’t know)

Whether that is through wilful neglect or just plain incompetence is not clear, but they have done magnificently well at **** things up. It makes me so mad and sad in equal measures that they have achieved so little with so much. Compare the potential that the Gorm has to somewhere like the Lecht which has absolutely sod all going for it and yet has managed to survive over the years and try to make something.

IMHO, the railway is what killed them off. It may have been a good idea originally, but by the time it got past all the objections it was just an utter waste of money. They actually paid thousands of pounds to have individual boulders mapped out so they could be replaced in the same place after the tunnel was dug. Utterly heartbreaking.

And then the tunnel itself. OMFG. Was it about 7 years ago when the Gorm had millenial snowfall over Christmas. It was amazing, they had foot after foot of fresh snow and thousand of people had day after day of amazing skiing and the ski industry made a fortune.

Actually that’s bollocks. What actually happened is that the **** tunnel filled up with snow and they coudn’t run the **** train for days until they’d cleared it. Absolute bit of a mess.

They say that a compromise is a solution that suits nobody. Cairngorm Railway is the embodiment of that sentiment.

It cost far more than it should due to the wrangling and bullshit environmental compromises.

It’s an eyesore.

It’s shit for getting large quantities of skiers up the hill.

It doesn’t even go to the top of the **** hill

Since they wasted all the money on that lift, they have no money to upkeep other lifts, so they dismantled them.

Because of the environmental bullshit, summer visitors aren’t allowed out of the buidling, so they can’t make any money from MTB etc.

Basically it’s a piece of shit.

Alan from Winterhighland is an awesome dude. What he has done for Scottish skiing over the last 5 years is amazing. He speaks about CG in much more measured terms than I can, and explains much better how they completely and utterly suck

What’s happening? See here linky and here linky2 post from 27th November.
In summary resort people/owners entered SSC hut which they do not own and physically removed webcam belonging to Winterhighland because they don’t like Winterhighland and they want exclusive ownership of webcam views of the hill! Pretty shocking behavior and I would encourage folks to look into the issue and boycott CGM for now. Difficult request as Aviemore is a great place to stay for a snowsports break but Natural Retreats need to get the message that this is unacceptable.

LD

Yup. They’re a complete bunch of crooks. Dismal incompetent fools.

and boycott CGM for now.

Hmmm, well TBH I’m split on this one. In general I would support a CG boycott, but the great thing is that CG keeps the hordes away from The Mighty One and Aonach Mor.

Nah. The workers at Cairngorm and the valley in general needs folk to keep coming. I have a season pass this year (I luckily didn’t bother last year). They’re open tomorrow actually. Limited run but it’s only November…

Yeah that is the other side of the coin. How can we best support the community buyout group? Glencoe are open too and they seem to do business ethically…

Remember that the community group can only acquire the asset (we shouldn’t really call it a buy-out as the land actually belongs to the Scottish Government so it’s unlikely they’d get money from one part of the SG to pay a different part of the SG. Hopefully it’ll just be an asset transfer) NR will still have the contract to run the operation, though one can imagine a firmer hand being applied once the community have full access to the accounts etc. I guess the relationship might be so bad that the two can’t work together and then there’s be a legal squabble about contracts. Hey – we’ll see.

Glencoe are open too and they seem to do business ethically…

Didn’t they have some ‘issues’ with the guy that done the MTB trail building?

@scotroutes – what’s the timescale / process for community to actually be able to take over?

Matt – it won’t be any time soon seeing what’s happened in other places (Eigg, Assynt etc). However, as I wrote above, the simplifying bit is that there isn’t another landowner in the picture. Earlier this week the Community Trust reached the required numbers to approach the Govt. regarding the asset transfer/purchase.

Didn’t they have some ‘issues’ with the guy that done the MTB trail building?

I seem to remember something about that too.

Didn’t they have some ‘issues’ with the guy that done the MTB trail building?

Aye, there was a very cloak and dagger thread on here a while back, folks meeting in car parks etc, was all a bit Le Carre for a trailbuilder….

Aye, there was a very cloak and dagger thread on here a while back, folks meeting in car parks etc, was all a bit Le Carre for a trailbuilder….

+ a ‘new member’ who was really keen to review in glowing terms how wonderful the trail was, what a great day she had, who wanted to meet up for a ride there again it was so great etc.
Reverse image search led to a facebook page of a couple of Glencoe resort employees… 😆

Glencoe were not in the wrong there. I can’t say too much about it, but the person making the accusations was wrong.

From what I remember of that thread the trailbuilder had been offered a very small amount of paid work, but then went and spent weeks working on the trails, handed them an invoice and was shocked when they said “sorry pal we never asked you to do that work and we’re not paying you for it.”

Thread seems to have gone way off piste.

Cairngorm Mountain / Natural Resorts actions in removing the Winterhigland webcams seem to be well out of order.

Surely all they needed to do to capture all the web traffic for webcams (which is their stated objective) is install better quality ones with better views of snow conditions. Should be relatively easy as Coire Chaos is covered in their infrastructure. No need to sabotage the Winterhighlands ones – folks would stop looking at them if CML provided a better offering.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09gtyjq#play

This TGO Magazine story had been linked from the Winterhighland forum thread. It’s interesting reading and gives quite a bit more detail of the webcam saga.

http://www.tgomagazine.co.uk/news/natural-retreats-remove-popular-winterhighland-cairngorm-webcams-amid-accusations-of-criminal-activity/

The Technoalpin Snowfactory arrived and is being set up in the car park. It’s only for an extended trial period but it’ll be interesting to see what it can do.

Since they wasted all the money on that lift, they have no money to upkeep other lifts, so they dismantled them.

Now I said this to someone I know who used to live and work up there and they said this is incorrect and the funding for the railway wasn’t related to money for the chairlifts, two separate things.

Now I said this to someone I know who used to live and work up there and they said this is incorrect and the funding for the railway wasn’t related to money for the chairlifts, two separate things.

I think they were having to pay off loans for the funicular for years till the loans got cancelled. The two were very much interlinked and reduced the available capital for years after.

The problem they have now is that the lift capacity at Cairngorm is so diminished that they can’t rake the cash in when the snow is good!