Not another Blog about the weather…yep, sadly so much of what we do depends on it.

Last week-end was a classic…yes we had wind, we even had a gust of 176mph at the tunnel mouth on Friday, but that’s not too unusual. What did knock us for six was the rain…or, to be more precise, the floods that resulted. On Saturday the road from Aviemore was impassable and it was also not possible to cross the Spey at Kincraig or Kingussie. The only way across the Spey was at Boat of Garten. We managed to get the majority of staff in, only to be almost blown off the mountain on Saturday morning. Winds were forecast to drop and by the afternoon we did manage to offer some quite reasonable skiing…but with access restricted and the resultant slow start, the number of snowsports enthusiasts was much lower than would have been expected on a “normal”( if there is such a thing in Scottish skiing ) weekend. What is often forgotten is the cost of making the effort to get open is almost the same whether we have 2,500 skiers or 100 skiers; that’s the nature of the business. If the weather forecast had been wrong, and it sometimes is, we would have been ready to cope with the numbers – including the demand for sandwiches!  

I was encouraged by the response to the last blog about the access road and parking.  For those who can remember, there used to be a charge for parking. This was replaced by absorbing the cost in the price of a day pass. These days we have far more visitors to the car park than use the facilities. Taking into account statistics from a Highland Council traffic counter and observation surveys of numbers per car, we reckon we get around half a million visitors to the car park each year. Only about half either ski or visit the funicular but is there a fair system of charging for parking that would be manageable, practical   and acceptable to all users?

Although we lost some snow in the last thaw, the main gullies still have a surprisingly good base and hopefully with more snow forecast we will be able to offer good skiing and boarding over half term. 

Bob

On many occasions over the years I have stood by the closed snow gates at Glenmore with hardly a breath of wind and wondered why on earth the road could not be opened. It was not until I joined the CML team that I really understood the problem. Firstly can I say that we are keen to open the gates as quickly as we can – apart from making business sense it also avoids the frustrations of our customers and other car park users. On Thursday we had a nightmare of a day, when lifts were operating and skiers enjoying the runs and yet at the same time we could not keep the road open for up traffic. We did try our best and I am sorry if you were one of those who could not make it up, but the heavy snow showers coupled with the wind just meant that despite ploughs working throughout the day, there were times when the road was just not safe to open.

The road from Glenmore to Coire Cas is a public road, but as far as the Council is concerned it is a low priority (the same category as clearing footpaths in villages). Clearly this service would be totally inadequate for recreational users wanting to get to the car parks and therefore we have the responsibility to try and keep the road clear during day time hours. The Council come round with their plough once in the morning and they do provide salt. We also have access to an old council blower if the snow is too deep for the plough, but apart from that we have to use CML staff, fuel, ploughs, and gritter to do the best job we can. As you can imagine this can be sizable cost in manpower and plant and adds just another dimension to operating the ski area.

The wind can be more of a problem than the snow. Snow on its own is fairly easy to clear, but the usual scenario is that winds blow across the link road and on the last stretch up to the car park, creating drifts almost immediately the snowplough has passed. On some occasions the road can be just very slippy with new snow and totally unsuitable for cars with summer tyres. Cars with winter tyres may well be able to make it up, but it only takes one car to get stuck or skid to cause a major blockage, which could cause further delays and spoil everyone’s day. 

A further complication is the car park, which incidentally is not a public car park.  Sometimes we have to clear the car park of snow prior to being able to park. The road may be fine, but without somewhere to park,  traffic would be impossible to manage. We also need to get the staff up first to manage people when they get to the car park. We do all this as fast as we possibly can, and we understand fully that both skiers and climbers are keen to get up as soon as possible.

Occasionally we have the opposite problem with cars in the car park, but the downhill road in bad condition due to weather coming in during the day. In extreme conditions we have convoyed cars down behind the plough. In stormy conditions the gates may be closed for the night, this decision and for that matter all road closure decisions are ratified by the Aviemore police. On more than one occasion we have found a car full of climbers stuck half way up, having taken the decision to drive past the close gates. Sadly the outcome of this selfish action is embarrassment and the inevitable delay in opening the road for others.

Some people think we should charge car park users to help pay for managing the parking and the road. Now there’s an idea?

Bob 

 Well we are  enjoying  another good weekend’s  skiing at Cairn Gorm and with lots of snow around at all five areas , queues  on the uplift have been very reasonable.  Last year we didn’t experience a full week end’s skiing throughout the whole winter and for the first time ever our lower lifts were unable to operate at any time due to lack of snow.   Although that was unprecedented, the secret of Scottish skiing is to enjoy it whilst the snow is here – who knows how long it will last?  Obviously the week ends are busier than during the week, and just now we have excellent opportunities for mid week skiing. During the week different ski areas have different policies about what they open; at Cairn Gorm our policy is to provide uplift for skiers to be able to access as much snow as possible. In practice this means that if it is possible to ski down the Ciste Gulley we will always endeavour to open the West Wall poma (subject to weather of course). In Scotland for some reason people tend to think of the amount of skiing available by the number of uplift offered rather than the length of run and the amount of snow that can be accessed, but that’s only really relevant when ther are big queues.   

 It’s also possible to get some really good value skiing. At Cain Gorm we currently sell 3 and 7 day vouchers which can be exchanged for tickets at any time of the season, and don’t have to be used concurrently. This means a day’s skiing even at the week end can be as cheap as £21.50. In the comments of the previous Blog it was suggested that it would be worth expanding on our commitment to skiing and the core lifts policy as part of the main Blog and therefore for those interested I have written below the basis of our current strategy.   

Scottish Ski areas face a number of challenges these days and real vision is required to ensure the best chance of offering skiing in the medium/long term future. Further investment will be required to update an aging uplift infrastructure and the ski centers will need to future proof against the potential impact of climate change. Of course no one can predict accurately what sort of winters we are likely to experience, but all indications, even taking into account this winter, fit into the patterns that have been well publicized about what’s happening to our climate. That’s not to say we won’t have good winters and good skiing in future, I am sure we will, but we would be burying our head in the sand if we thought we could just sit back and wait for the right weather patterns rather than pro actively work on a sustainable business model.

At Cairn Gorm we take this challenge very seriously and we intend to be around to offer skiing in the future. In 2004 we analyzed the size of the ski market, looked at future trends and other factors and decided to rationalise some of the area to concentrate on what is called “the core lift policy”. This was always going to be controversial, particularly in a good winter, but it is based on sound strategic thinking. The first factor was the size of the market. On Cairn Gorm this is between 2,000-3,000 skiers. In the old days it was around 5,000(remember the 9 lines on the Lady on a busy week end, you would be lucky to get half a dozen good runs). One factor is the parking capacity. We also took demographic and behavioral changes into account. We then carried out an analysis of the previous 20 years frequency of uplift use, including wind tolerance of lifts and  we concluded that we could offer access to 90% of the whole ski area (with exception of the lower Aonach and lower Ciste down to Ciste car park) from a set of core lifts. These lifts included the White Lady Tbar but not the Day Lodge poma. We trialed this for one season and then put the Day lodge poma back in to the core lifts, taking account of our own operational review and customer feedback.

We know with the right conditions we can still provide some of the best skiing in Scotland with minimal queuing for most of the time. The problem comes at the very busy weekends, of which we have had very few in recent years- for example we never parked in the Ciste once last year. We have actually had around 600 trading days since the last time we had to park in the Ciste. We do know that on a busy weekend the queues remain very reasonable once skiers are away from the car parks. Our main challenges at weekends include processing people through the system in the first place as fast as possible and ensuring we minimize down time on the lifts. We continue to work hard at addressing these issues as well as trying to improve our service in general. Last weekend very much confirmed that this is generally working, with very reasonable queues and a lot of positive feedback from customers.

Our strategy to create a sustainable business model also includes continued diversification, we have a vibrant trade all year round, BUT skiing remains an integral and important part of this and there are no plans to rationalise the skiing infrastructure any further, far from it, we will continue to invest in this aspect of the business. This strategy has strengths and weaknesses from a single skiing agenda perspective, but fundamentally we believe it is the best option we have, in order to secure skiing on Cairn Gorm in future.

To clarify the position of the White Lady Tbar, this has always been one of our core lifts which we planned to maintain /upgrade – we put a new rope on it two years ago and changed the gear box– an investment of investment of time and money. We simply had such a bad year last year and such a major catastrophic safety failure that we could not fix it for this season. The White Lady remains an integral core lift and we hope that it can be reinstated when finances permit, (but not this season).

Making any modifications or moving lifts is becoming increasingly expensive and bureaucratic. We have looked at numerous options, but before we do make further improvements we will need to weigh up where limited resources will have the best impact on the skiing side of the business. In the event that we were in a position where the business generated enough return from skiing that we could consider major infrastructure investment, we would probably look to replace some of the aging infrastructure with fewer, strategically placed, high capacity uplift.

I hope this helps clarify the core lifts policy and reassures our skiing customers of CML’s commitment to skiing. I welcome the constructive debate about what we should do and we are always open to ideas and feedback.

Bob

Below is a photograph of the bus park at Cairn Gorm on Saturday  12^th January. Yes, this is

 the bus park but there are no buses, only cars. This has been a trend over recent years, but it’s the first busy week-end when we have had no ski coach business at all - a sign of the times. At its peak in the 1980’s, it was not an unusual site to see 40 coaches;  I have heard stories of up to 70 coaches as a record ,  maybe someone out there knows?  What is significant about this is that coach business has been replaced by private cars, often only carrying one or two people. This means that on those few very busy days parking space becomes the critical factor. With both the Cas and Ciste car parks full, our capacity is between 2,500 and 3,000 skiers, rather than around 5,000 in the past. To put this in perspective this was never an issue last year and only once or twice over each of the previous five seasons. This has therefore been a major consideration in the strategic decisions on how we manage our area to try and provide the best ski experience and maintain a sustainable business model.  

 It would definitely be helpful if we could persuade more people to car share!  

 We have received lots of positive comments about the week-end – thank you. The comments about the attitude of the staff are particularly welcome. Although the rain on Sunday was a disappointment for skiers and boarders, it has meant that our snow is now  well consolidated in the gullies all the way to the car park and with fresh snow forecast it should mean we can keep the base and have good skiing conditions for a while yet. Not everything went to plan at the week-end, the web-site became so popular at the end of last week that it crashed – great, just what we did not need. We are now working on upgrading to avoid this problem in future. On Thursday the M1 motor died, another potential disaster, but we managed to replace this in 24 hours, although this in turn delayed other preparations for the week-end and meant the West Wall poma opening was delayed. The main belt for our road gritter also broke on Friday and we are very grateful to Highland Council for sending their plough and gritter up to help.  On a more positive note the new web cam now seems to be updating.  We know the catering outlets were really pushed and we are looking at ways to improve this.  

The skiing remains good and our policy is to continue to provide uplift to be able to ski and board as much as the ski area as possible.  It’s great that all five ski areas are up and running. Let’s hope the weather stays on our side and we get a reasonable run at this year!  

 Bob

1300  Wed -storm bound -  still too stormy to get to the top. Winds in excess of 130mph . Not safe to open road yet, our plough will be working all day to try and ensure we can get up tomorrow as soon as possible. Working with the team on the lower lifts at the moment - filling in nicely - several ropes off on lower lifts , winds still too strong to put them back. Hopefully not too much damage higher up - but we will be digging things out as soon as we can , expect ther will be inevitable delays in the morning .  Depending what we find we will get as much as possible up and running , but too early to give definative plans. As long as the weather behaves we are still on target for the week end for all main  lifts and good skiing down to the car park . Picture above of  car park tbar in between white outs.

Update 0700 Thursday -BINGO -  pisting since 5am , Digging tunnel  and sorting tows ….  concentrating on getting top lifts on . Should have excellent run from top to bottom

 Bob  

Thanks to those of you who have commented on the Blog entries so far. As a policy we will happily post comments that relate to the Blog subject matter. Feedback on other aspects of the operation is always welcome and we will try and respond as soon as possible, but we will not necessarily post your comments if they don’t relate to the Blog.

Listening to our customers is one of the most crucial and valued aspects of the way we work at Cairn Gorm. There are a number of ways in which comments are received including email, comment forms on site as well as just talking to our staff. At our weekly managers meeting we review customer comments and this helps us to provide a better service. We are proud to hold the “Hospitality Assured” accreditation, which is a national bench mark system used in the hospitality industry to ensure our business maintains a customer focus.

Every day is different at Cairn Gorm and this is one of the biggest challenges we face.  On Friday we carried out our first evacuation of the ski area this winter. On the one hand we were pleased to see the snow, but when the wind changed from 20mph to 76 mph in a matter of minutes this presented some real operational challenges. The duty manager is responsible for managing this process, ensuring the safety of the public and staff is our first priority. On Friday the duty manager was John McMorran he put the evacuation procedure in place at 1pm and over over 500 skiers, boarders and members of the public (most of whom were not kitted out for the conditions) were evacuated by 3.20pm. We had to convoy cars down using the snow ploughs to ensure everyone got down safely.

We lost Saturday to storms, but enjoyed a good day’s skiing on Sunday. The fitters had to make final adjustments to the slow down unit on the M1, but we are finding that this is still not “racer proof” with the youngsters still tending to release the bar from between their legs which then shoots up into the slow down unit and causes problems. This caused 25 stops on Sunday, but it seems to be working fine now.

We are now working flat out to get the West Wall poma and the Cas on, as well as the lower lifts, in time for the week-end. Conditions are improving each day with more snow but strong winds forecast for later today- in fact it looks like we may have to tie some of the upper lifts down? .

Below is a picture of the lower Cas which now has good snow in the gun barrel, although the upper part of the Cas is still too thin to operate.

We are gearing up for a good skiing week-end ,

Bob