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Olderalan


Posts: 1510
Joined: Feb 2006
Last Visited: 15:23
7th Apr 2019
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Re: HIE reveals £27m 'new vision' for CairnGorm Mountain Ltd
Date Posted: 09.57hrs on Thu 8 Nov 18
A couple of thoughts: The proposal does nothing to Funicular Proof the business for non snow-sports customers. If the chairlifts had already been built as shown, then the Ptarmigan would remain out of reach if/when the Funicular wasn't operable. Non snow-sports customers are important and there are around 125,000 of them each year. During September and October this year there have been none of them up the hill. Why invest 27m to perpetuate that unworkable situation.

I liked this gem: ''A base area carpet conveyor lift would provide a 'best-in-class' beginner experience. Obviously they have never been to the Lecht.

Kind regards


Olderalan
Doug_Bryce


Posts: 1373
Joined: Jan 2003
Re: HIE reveals £27m 'new vision' for CairnGorm Mountain Ltd
Date Posted: 09.58hrs on Thu 8 Nov 18
Quote:
The firm who did the work do have extensive experience in ski-ing operations, just not in Scotland.


^ Excuse my cynicism...

When HIE originally awarded the lease to Natural Retreats (2014) we were told that Cairngorm would be hosting the x-games and UK would see winter gold medals as result :-) Clearly that was marketing hot-air...

They have now burnt 80K paying an American firm to write management consulting report. Which other resort in Scotland could afford to do this?

The outcome appears to be a new chairlift to 3500ft on literally the windiest part of the mountain. Plus a bunch of other stuff (zip lines / rollercoasters) that isn't appropriate for Coire Cas and wouldn't pass national park planning regulations.

First things first : how much is the funicular going to cost to repair?
Current rumour is it could be £10 million to replace all the cracked pillars.

The only hope for Cairngorm, and Scottish skiing, is to remove HIE from their existing role. Clearly incompetent and making the same mistakes over and over again.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 09.59hrs Thu 8 Nov 18 by Doug_Bryce.
rtj1211


Posts: 14
Joined: Apr 2018
Last Visited: 10:44
23rd Mar 2020
Re: HIE reveals £27m 'new vision' for CairnGorm Mountain Ltd
Date Posted: 09.59hrs on Thu 8 Nov 18
Reading what is said in the Exec. Summ., the justification for closing one base station is that you need 8000 visitors a day to justify two, according to standard resort resort management folklore.

Even at 50 days operations, a very bad season indeed, that is 400,000 skier days per season, which is way more than Cairngorm has ever achieved.

If that is the justification, no marketing plan will achieve that before 2030, if ever.

Obvious question: where does that 8000 a day figure come from? Is it just a US standard??

Second question: long term, if there is only one base station, why does it have to be Coire Cas? If road access to Cas is so much worse, why not Glenmore or Coire na Ciste?

Another question: if you did abandon Ciste as a base station, you can still operate Ciste Gully like Gers in Flaine i.e. a backbowl with a lift back to top station but no direct way down the mountain. Have a chair from where long-term snow is reliable back to top. It is not very difficult, cuts cost of base station, retains Ciste as a ski area and if necessary, have a walking path out for rare days when pm exit via top station is suddenly no longer possible (shutting the back bowl for safety reasons is pretty standard ski resort operations management after all).


The simple fact is this though: there is no major revenue opportunity for Cairngorm in the winter months outside skiing. So if it is to be a year round destination, it has to be a major ski destination in winter.

The plan outlined reads to me like taking ten years to stabilise visitor numbers using less lifts and half the terrain, creating more pinch points.

Thing is, the whole thing may need to be repeated if funicular is kaputt long term.
01cookjk


Posts: 141
Joined: Jan 2014
Last Visited: 09:09
6th Apr 2021
Re: HIE reveals £27m 'new vision' for CairnGorm Mountain Ltd
Date Posted: 10.09hrs on Thu 8 Nov 18
Who else would want the following;

1) Leave the M1 as be, doubling it up or re-instating the white lady t-ba
2) Putting the 6-Pack chairlift proposed & snowmaking up the ciste from the ciste carpark to the bottom of the Ciste T-Bar with mid-uplift to the left of the WWP
3) Re-aligning the proposed 6-pack chairlift so it runs to the top of the current cas T-bar and adding in a mid stop just below the washing line tow
4) Leaving the ridge poma as is, thus the resort is not so heavily reliant on these chairs.

5) There being a phase 3 - this being new T-bars in the Ciste/Ptarmigan gully by 2030 and a new funicular or alternative by then too.
pyke13


Posts: 6
Joined: Jan 2010
Last Visited: 18:21
27th Feb 2019
Re: HIE reveals £27m 'new vision' for CairnGorm Mountain Ltd
Date Posted: 11.23hrs on Thu 8 Nov 18
I think the report has taken the finicular being off line into account, why else lose the beginners area in the top bowl and concentrate on the cas side?

StevieMcK


Posts: 1160
Joined: Feb 2003
Last Visited: 13:25
29th Apr 2019
Re: HIE reveals £27m 'new vision' for CairnGorm Mountain Ltd
Date Posted: 11.36hrs on Thu 8 Nov 18
Doug_Bryce Wrote:
Quote:The outcome appears to be a new chairlift to 3500ft on literally the windiest part of the mountain.


I'd go one further than that and say the windiest part of Scotland. How often do you see the Cairngorm Summit gust speeds quoted during storms!
somnambulant_sasquatch


Posts: 120
Joined: Dec 2011
Last Visited: 12:56
31st Jul 2019
Re: HIE reveals £27m 'new vision' for CairnGorm Mountain Ltd
Date Posted: 11.56hrs on Thu 8 Nov 18
since we're doing fantasy chairlift planning, how about a detachable from the ciste carpark to marquis area, but following the old aonach t-bar line and M2 with 2 intermediary load/unload stations near current WWP and ciste t-bar drives?

each of the 3 segments could be run (or not) at the appropriate line rate for the load and environmental conditions of the moment.
jabuzzard


Posts: 885
Joined: Jan 2010
Last Visited: 11:02
16th Apr 2021
Re: HIE reveals £27m 'new vision' for CairnGorm Mountain Ltd
Date Posted: 13.00hrs on Thu 8 Nov 18
rtj1211 Wrote:

Another question: if you did abandon Ciste as a base station, you can still operate Ciste Gully like Gers in Flaine i.e. a backbowl with a lift back to top station but no direct way down the mountain. Have a chair from where long-term snow is reliable back to top. It is not very difficult, cuts cost of base station, retains Ciste as a ski area and if necessary, have a walking path out for rare days when pm exit via top station is suddenly no longer possible (shutting the back bowl for safety reasons is pretty standard ski resort operations management after all).


Er you can get from the bottom of the Ger's button back to La Piste des Cascades and down to Sixt most of the winter. You might need a bit of polling depending on how much speed you are willing to carry, but it is not a "isolated" as you suggest.
Hipennine


Posts: 1061
Joined: Dec 2005
Re: HIE reveals £27m 'new vision' for CairnGorm Mountain Ltd
Date Posted: 17.32hrs on Thu 8 Nov 18
pyke13 Wrote:
I think the report has taken the finicular being off line into account, why else lose the beginners area in the top bowl and concentrate on the cas side?


i think that is more to do with the american approach that you stick all the beginner facilities at the base with a daylodge,etc.,whereas in the alps, many resorts have minimal bottom station facilities for beginners, but major facilities at Mid mountain (ie including kid's zones, creche, restauarants, hire,, equipment shops etc. Remember, there used to be this sort of model at cairngorm. Limited base facilities, beginner and servcing with a mid station chairlift at the shieling, and lesser facilities up at the ptarmigan.

If they consider a base should have the typical full blown lodge facilities as per USA, no wonder the Ciste option was unviable.
Beastie


Posts: 128
Joined: Dec 2013
Last Visited: 09:19
17th May 2020
Re: HIE reveals £27m 'new vision' for CairnGorm Mountain Ltd
Date Posted: 20.26hrs on Thu 8 Nov 18
I guess the full report will have laid out options including a facility at the Ciste car park. I would've thought ticketing would've been easy, maybe hire facilities would be harder to do economically.

As ML says it'd all be quite encouraging if it was any other centre. The thing that's hard to get past is the 15 year record of management doing the wrong thing at CGM, unless the people actually tasked with realising any of these plans change they'll mess it up.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 20.28hrs Thu 8 Nov 18 by Beastie.
kammy


Posts: 295
Joined: Jan 2004
Last Visited: 21:23
2nd Mar 2021
Re: HIE reveals £27m 'new vision' for CairnGorm Mountain Ltd
Date Posted: 21.09hrs on Thu 8 Nov 18
Sounds good on paper and £27 million pounds is a big investment over the span of 10 years in different phases of development.

Why is the Cas side not being utilised to cater to the advanced/expert skiers and boarders, M1 should be left alone, in case the chairlifts to the top of the mountain are closed due to the wind speeds, With this huge amount of investment, Natural retreats needs to make a huge profit to pay for the large new investment.

The question is how much ticket prices will go up and will the car park charges still apply even if you buy a season pass or a day ticket.
PeterS


Posts: 980
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Last Visited: 12:21
13th Mar 2021
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Re: HIE reveals £27m 'new vision' for CairnGorm Mountain Ltd
Date Posted: 21.35hrs on Thu 8 Nov 18
Informed discussion here about chairlift operating in strong winds. It sounds as though 50mph is about the cut off for 6 person chairs.
[www.skilifts.org]
alan


Posts: 10768
Joined: Nov 1994
Last Visited: 22:28
10th Mar 2024
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Re: HIE reveals £27m 'new vision' for CairnGorm Mountain Ltd
Date Posted: 21.43hrs on Thu 8 Nov 18
PeterS Wrote:
Informed discussion here about chairlift operating in strong winds. It sounds as though 50mph is about the cut off for 6 person chairs.


Depends on lift line, tower loading, number of carriers. But a high speed detach can usually keep going at fixed grip speeds at the point the fixed grip would be completely closed. Rope position detectors that detect movement in the cable rather than brake forks that detect a derailment after it happens helps too in the case of high speed lifts.

The Glencoe Access Chair has a 50mph limit and we're talking about an almost 30 year old fixed double. I'd imagine a suitably built lift avoiding lightly loaded towers in exposed locations would be able to go to 60mph at reduced speed.

Put it this way long past the point many would be in the cafe and if a cross wind also after the point Poma bars would be wrapping around things they shouldn't!




Edited 1 times. Last edit at 21.57hrs Thu 8 Nov 18 by alan.
growwild


Posts: 3550
Joined: Oct 2005
Re: HIE reveals £27m 'new vision' for CairnGorm Mountain Ltd
Date Posted: 21.54hrs on Thu 8 Nov 18
How did beginners get up to the Ptarmigan before the train and why do they have tae be up in the mist and shitty weather?

The place needs upgrading and probably more focus on bringing in snow to build up regulars, this is an interesting read about snow making and makes good points, says there was research done in Scotland too - [www.bioone.org] It doesn't take intae account the snow factory systems but has decent numbers and info that can be changed tae suit..

A wee snow making system and replacing and fixing what's there or was just ain't gonna cut it, go big or shut and leave it to the other's. I know some here were against snow making at Glencoe and now sing a different tune, change works...

If Aviemore and the ski resort kept up momentum when they started yas would have nothing tae greet about, well not this anyway.. Snow making should have been properly invested in years ago along with swapping out certain tows and replacing them with lifts..

Glencoe's new chair opens up more area and ya could easily take out the poma and with a bit of landscaping create something for every level on the plateau spreading more people out... Same again, I know of people that complained at the idea of a chair there years ago before Andy came in.

Dinosaurs...
Niall Thomson


Posts: 95
Joined: Nov 2003
Last Visited: 04:54
3rd Aug 2019
Re: HIE reveals £27m 'new vision' for CairnGorm Mountain Ltd
Date Posted: 11.09hrs on Fri 9 Nov 18
Well firstly, and as others have said, the scale of ineptitude under HIE's stewardship is truly breathtaking. There surely cannot be any secure future for the place under their continued leadership. Handing the whole shooting match to FCS to manage may not be a very good idea either.

I don't know anything about the quality and strength in depth of the community group. However, in my opinion they need complete buy - in from all the movers and shakers and then lobby the Scottish Ministers directly. Do the local community have the strength and stomach for this because its a big ask? Nicola Sturgeon, no less, should be ordering an investigation into how this shameful situation has been allowed to develop.


In terms of the counter offensive which HIE have thrown out, I'd love to know when that report was actually handed to them - before they tore down the Ciste pylons? Regardless, it carries no weight whatsoever - both the Executive Summary and the video could have been knocked up in a few days. Where is the full report / science behind all this? And where's the funding going to come from? It's just another "vision" and these are ten a penny in civil service land...

Totally agree with the Glenmore angle. And given that this option merits serious consideration from a Snowsports point of view nobody seems to have mentioned the (summer) asset that is the beach / Loch Morlich itself? To me that is one of the cornerstones of any future development and is the standout which makes their "vision" so utterly lacking in vision. They are just plonking toys on the hill and most of these are in the wrong order. A tick here and there...

Truly sad state of affairs.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 11.11hrs Fri 9 Nov 18 by Niall Thomson.
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