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footprint


Posts: 14
Joined: Sep 2011
Last Visited: 15:27
8th Mar 2017
Warmest Season EVER proves HIE strategy correct for Cairngorm
Date Posted: 13.49hrs on Fri 30 May 14
The winter season was 2c above normal for every month and people need to grasp the enormity of that. Two whole degrees is a huge margin in monthly averages.

This spring is now the warmest on record in Scotland [www.bbc.co.uk] there has been 6 consecutive months of ridiculously above average temperatures.

Warmer, wetter and much wilder winters is exactly that which were projected to become more common as evermore hot gases smother our atmosphere. So even when it does snow, relentless storms will shutdown operations and combined with the ephemeral transient snow cover usher in commercial ruin for snow dependent businesses.

HIE has a duty to protect the public purse and thus is absolutely right to have appointed an operator inline with it's objectives. HIE can not permit new ski infrastructure as the taxpayer would be forced to pay to remove it when the end inevitably comes. Instead life extension work on the core lifts will be undertaken so they can last as far into the franchise as they are required and that will unlikely to be beyond 2020 for much of it. Natural Retreats are commercial profit driven company and the fact they looked at the business and only plan non snowsports investment tells you all you need to now.

[www.strathspey-herald.co.uk]

"There are no firm plans at present to improve the west wall ski tow". No shit sherlock, its wholly unviable to maintain a lift that operates a handful of days a season yet the armchair ski area managers want to spend £1m of capital and the yearly maintenance on a dangerously antiquated lift to serve exactly the same never open terrain as the West Wall tow!
Doug_Bryce


Posts: 1373
Joined: Jan 2003
Re: Warmest Season EVER proves HIE strategy correct for Cairngorm
Date Posted: 13.55hrs on Fri 30 May 14
thank you sir for alerting us to this danger ...
please post pictures of your naked sister and send money via western union ASAP to collect your prize winking smiley


Scomuir


Posts: 300
Joined: Sep 2004
Re: Warmest Season EVER proves HIE strategy correct for Cairngorm
Date Posted: 14.15hrs on Fri 30 May 14
Your tunnel vision goggles of doom seem to be excluding the volumes of snow that fell last winter, as well as affecting your memory of recent good winters (e.g. 2009/10, 2010/11, 2012/2013).
Jamie


Posts: 987
Joined: Jan 2002
Re: Warmest Season EVER proves HIE strategy correct for Cairngorm
Date Posted: 14.39hrs on Fri 30 May 14
Does the original poster have any connection to Footprint Consulting, the firm that produced the 'New Vision' consultations in association with CML circa 2006 regarding diversification away from skiing?
Bomp


Posts: 172
Joined: Nov 2010
Last Visited: 17:00
22nd Apr 2021
Re: Warmest Season EVER proves HIE strategy correct for Cairngorm
Date Posted: 14.54hrs on Fri 30 May 14
The idea that the OP might be some sort of consultant that people would listen to, even pay money to, is a bit scary to say the least...
Hipennine


Posts: 1061
Joined: Dec 2005
Re: Warmest Season EVER proves HIE strategy correct for Cairngorm
Date Posted: 15.17hrs on Fri 30 May 14
footprint Wrote:


This spring is now the warmest on record in Scotland there has been 6 consecutive months of ridiculously above average temperatures.

Warmer, wetter and much wilder winters is exactly that which were projected to become more common as evermore hot gases smother our atmosphere. So even when it does snow, relentless storms will shutdown operations and combined with the ephemeral transient snow cover usher in commercial ruin for snow dependent businesses.


1/ the bbc article refers to March to May, not Dec to April
2/ Scotland is a big place. The past winter has been charecterised as being more alpine than temperate - ie warm and wet lower down, but cold and snowy higher up. It might have been warmer at some weather station in the Central Belt, but not above 2000 feet.
3/ a business plan based around placing the House of Bruar 2300f feet up a National Park mountain hardly satisfies environmental objectives, and it will cost the public purse to remove that.

Troll.
what...snow


Posts: 328
Joined: Nov 2007
Last Visited: 11:21
22nd Apr 2021
Re: Warmest Season EVER proves HIE strategy correct for Cairngorm
Date Posted: 15.39hrs on Fri 30 May 14
It does not. It shows that the current infrastructure in use at Cairngorm can't cope with this sort of winter weather either. The biggest problem this year was accessing the rump of high level skiing that 'HIE strategy' has focused on maintaining at Cairngorm through the vast quantities of snow that fell to lower levels. The Ptarmigan tow was shut for months because it was buried and the Funicular yet again did not run for weeks because the track was covered in snow and there is still no swift way of clearing it! Manually digging it out prevented staff being deployed elsewhere to open 'orphan tows', once integral to the ski area but now marooned at the edges, not seen as essential and sometimes with no easy escape in the event of failure, ie the West Wall, Daylodge and Coire na Ciste. Ski tows which used to run at lower levels have been decommissioned through previous shortsightedness.

So we had upper tows buried, lower tows broken up and no adequate uplift.

For months Glencoe and Nevis Range featured in the top twenty resorts for snow depths around the world. Cairngorm didn't report any snow depths for months, then finally admitted they probably had about 5m depth at mid-mountain! You refer to this as 'ephemeral transient snow cover'.

'Ski resort shut due to too much snow' would be funny once or twice but is a bit galling when it happens most weekends through the winter. You argue this is a reason to shut the lifts entirely. I think otherwise as I enjoy skiing. Previously you have managed to provoke debate by misusing various bits of data to suit your own agenda, but this offering is pretty shoddy. Mind you, arguing that black is white is tough work.

Having argued so unsuccessfully that snowy weather is a valid reason to decommission ski lifts, I look forward to next years post. Maybe you will explain why cold weather isn't conducive to operating a ski area either.

Neil
walydug


Posts: 45
Joined: Jan 2011
Last Visited: 19:12
5th Jun 2019
Re: Warmest Season EVER proves HIE strategy correct for Cairngorm
Date Posted: 08.05hrs on Sat 31 May 14
Well done to all the other Scottish centres for increasing skier numbers this year in the face of such adversity. Cairngorm lost numbers and market share because their strategy is awful.



Edited 2 times. Last edit at 12.03hrs Sat 31 May 14 by walydug.
eurotele


Posts: 277
Joined: Dec 2002
Re: Warmest Season EVER proves HIE strategy correct for Cairngorm
Date Posted: 22.11hrs on Sat 31 May 14
walydug Wrote:
Well done to all the other Scottish centres for increasing skier numbers this year in the face of such adversity. Cairngorm lost numbers and market share because their strategy is awful.



Edited 2 times. Last edit at 13.03hrs Sat 31 May 14 by walydug.



Plain and simple it's because they are a bunch of greedy bastards ( CGM that is )




Edited 1 times. Last edit at 22.12hrs Sat 31 May 14 by eurotele.
Nelbert


Posts: 281
Joined: Oct 2009
Last Visited: 16:26
23rd Aug 2015
Re: Warmest Season EVER proves HIE strategy correct for Cairngorm
Date Posted: 11.45hrs on Sun 1 Jun 14
This troll just won't give it a rest. Have you not got anything better to do with your time??
Gorminator


Posts: 667
Joined: Jan 2011
Last Visited: 15:45
11th Aug 2019
Re: Warmest Season EVER proves HIE strategy correct for Cairngorm
Date Posted: 14.26hrs on Sun 1 Jun 14
Footprint... This "amateur" ski manager suggests that you better get your application form in for the new Aviemore Tesco, so that your wage there can pay some of your household bills, a bit like CML has done for the last few years !!!

PS Go and fill in the holes in the Car Park, so you can be seen to be doing something constructive by NR!!

Or is my sarcasm too "CORNY"
tupp


Posts: 234
Joined: Apr 2010
Re: Warmest Season EVER proves HIE strategy correct for Cairngorm
Date Posted: 14.45hrs on Sun 1 Jun 14
^snigger^
tele-ecosse


Posts: 37
Joined: Dec 2011
Last Visited: 22:52
1st Jun 2016
Re: Warmest Season EVER proves HIE strategy correct for Cairngorm
Date Posted: 09.50hrs on Mon 2 Jun 14
I'm off to somewhere which has a more positive feeling to it.

The 'Better Together' site comes to mind!!



Cold Smoke Convert
DonaldM


Posts: 871
Joined: Jan 2009
Last Visited: 20:58
10th Aug 2019
Re: Warmest Season EVER proves HIE strategy correct for Cairngorm
Date Posted: 21.58hrs on Mon 2 Jun 14
tele-ecosse Wrote:
I'm off to somewhere which has a more positive feeling to it.

The 'Better Together' site comes to mind!!



Cold Smoke Convert


ha ha, liking your irony.
flugeryl


Posts: 2307
Joined: Oct 2004
Last Visited: 12:40
11th Mar 2021
What's this?What's this?What's this?
Re: Warmest Season EVER proves HIE strategy correct for Cairngorm
Date Posted: 06.52hrs on Tue 3 Jun 14
def a smell of project fear in the air or as chewin the fat said

" I smell shite"....

Be Nice to Skiers, they have it hard enough already
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