The Mountain Spirit Winter Fest is due to be held at the week end. Rob Edmonds, from Mountain Spirit sports shop in Aviemore has put together a brilliant programme for the weekend.  We are delighted to be able to host this initiative at Cairngorm and this is an excellent example of working in collaboration with others to provide mutual benefit for local businesses and our snow sports visitors.   The weather at the moment looks challenging, but this can change and as always we will do whatever we can to provide a good weekend for everyone.

 We work closely with many local businesses and at this time of year the Aviemore ski retailers are important ambassadors for the whole area. They are able to help visiting skiers and boarders make the most of their time here, and their advice and local knowledge is really helpful, particularly when conditions change at short notice.  

These days people have far more choice in what they do in their leisure time and the Scottish ski industry not only has to try and compete with other ski destinations, but also with other leisure pursuits. The Scottish ski areas work together in a group called the Association of Scottish Ski areas (ASSA). We firmly believe it is in all our interests that all 5 ski areas can sustain and develop skiing opportunities in Scotland.

At a more local level we take an active role within the local destination management organisation (ACDMO), one of the first DMO’s in Scotland.  The organisation is based on the principle of collaboration in the private sector to improve our tourism offering- which of course includes winter sports.  It’s still early days but we believe this collaborative approach is the way forward. 

Cairn Gorm sits at the heart of the recently formed Cairngorms National Park and this has provided another excellent opportunity to work with many other stakeholders to develop a truly sustainable future for the whole area.

We have supported and continue to support a number of community initiatives and the team here at Cairngorm has raised funds for both local charities and National charities. We are particularly keen to support local young people and provide free skiing through the School ski initiative involving   local primary schools, as well as scholarship season passes for local youngsters who get involved in the competitive side of snow sports.

We may not be able to manage the weather; therefore we believe it’s even more important that we all work together in our area to make sure our visitors get the best possible experience, snow or no snow.

Crossed fingers for reasonable weather at the week end – we still have good snow down to the middle.

Bob.        

In British Columbia the southerly warm wind that rips the snow off the hills is called “the Pineapple Express”. Here back in Scotland we call it “the hair dryer” and we are now experiencing our fifth day of strong winds and no snow sports; you can’t imagine how frustrating this is for staff and our skiing visitors. We lost a whole weekend of scheduled competitions and events with all the planning and logistics involved - disappointing for all of us. We did manage to get the train running, but winds were still too strong and remaining snow too icy to offer any skiing.

So far this season, from 20 December we have lost 16 days to wind and storms and on another 5 days we could only open the train! That’s a massive 30% of the time when we could not operate any snow lifts. Sounds crazy, but that’s the realty of Scottish skiing. It highlights that there is not only an inbuilt inefficiency in trying to operate a Scottish ski area, but providing a consistent customer experience is simply not possible. Those who arrived in the area on Thursday with the plan of skiing over the past few days would have had a totally negative experience; however a week before it would have been the exact opposite. To add to the complications of all this, there are days when the decision is not clear- cut or conditions change during operating hours, quite often not in ways which are forecast, and sometimes we have to turn visitors away in the morning only to be able to open later in the day.

Today started more promisingly with some fresh snow allowing us to ski off the train , but winds too high for anything else – sadly we had to pull the plug on this at 1330, beaten once again by the winds. More wind is forecast tomorrow!

The good news is we still have a base of snow in the gullies and over 2 kilometres of skiing from the top down to the bottom of the CAS via the traverse. March can be an excellent month for skiing in Scotland and it would be unprecedented not to get more snow from the infamous lambing storms as we move towards Easter.

One thing is for sure you have got to remain optimistic in this job.

Bob

  Last week we recorded over 8,000 skier days, our busiest day was last Tuesday with 1300 skiers. Historically these numbers aren’t stunning by any means, but these days this is good steady business and well within the capacity of the ski area, even with the snow cover we have at the moment. This is a real win win situation, as not only did we have good skier numbers, but we also know from our feedback that we had a lot of very happy customers. Of course the settled weather really makes a difference and although this element is out of our hands it’s important we make the most of good conditions when we get them. The team here has been working hard to do just that.  Without the warm winds from the South West the snow pack has held together really well and overnight some fresh snow has fallen - the first for many days.  The week end is normally our busiest time, but not this week end; we think our regulars decided it was going to be  busy and it wasn’t – but those who came enjoyed some great skiing with minimal queuing , particularly on the Cas. The ski schools have also been busy with the Mountain school currently employing over 35 instructors -  most classes are around beginner level and this helps to create a new generation of young and not so young Scottish skiers – our life blood for the future of Scottish skiing.  Many of our customers took advantage of the flexible three-day pass which provides skiing at excellent value at £22 per day.  Yes, the market has changed, as has the weather and the demographics - and we have taken all these changing factors into account in planning the best way to sustain our snow business - sometimes these decisions have not been popular , but they are proving to be realistic.  These days Scottish skiers tend to take short breaks when the conditions and weather allow, supplementing their main Alpine holiday. Scotland can be a great place to learn and for most people it’s just good to get on snow for the odd day even if these days our main ski holidays tend to be in the Alps or North America. If only we could guarantee the stable conditions we are currently enjoying!  As a reminder of the old days, see below some archive photos of the queues on the Lady, car park and Fiacaill ridge back in the 1980’s and early 90’s. These photos were sent in by one of our season pass holders – Keith Bryers. We are going to set up an archive photo album on our main web site – so if you have some interesting photos of the old days please send them in. 

Bob

  As   you can imagine we are really delighted that our half term visitors are able to enjoy such good conditions on the mountain, although the snow remained hard all day yesterday the overhead conditions have been excellent.  Following a day in the office I skied up to the summit of Cairn Gorm after work to catch the sunset.  Photos of Ben Nevis , 50 miles away- (The high point)  and the v notch window of Creag  Meagaidh on the right  are claerly visible! 

Coming back down it was   possible to ski all the way down to the car park, via the first zig of the Cas and onto the Fiacaill ridge poma track which is still complete. 

Bob

There’s a well-known acronym in business called MBWA, which stands for “Management By Walking About”. In other words the importance of getting out and seeing what is actually going on at the shop floor. Here at Cairngorm we call this MBSA or “Management By Skiing About”.  During the week my diary is normally fairly full, but I try and spend time at the weekends getting out and about and meeting as many visitors as possible as well as getting round the staff. Occasionally it’s possible to get out during the week and today, the first weekday of half term, was an ideal opportunity to see how things were going. We did not get off to a good start; the overnight forecast was for light winds. However when we arrived on site, winds were too strong for any tows or uplift to operate in, apart from the railway. Fortunately the wind did drop and we were able to get all our lifts on where snow permitted, but we lost a bit of time in the morning. By mid- morning the hard packed snow had begun to soften which helped considerably in providing our skiing visitors with excellent skiing as the day went on. Below are a few photos of what it was like. We expect the snow to harden overnight once again and it may take a while for this to soften, but let’s hope the weather does what it says it is going to, in which case we should have another good day!  Thanks for the feedback on earlier blogs - all most welcome and useful.

Bob   

The cycle of weather continues with good snow followed by periods of warm weather, and/or strong winds. It’s a bit like a game of snakes and ladders – but I have to say this year we do seem to be making our way steadily up the board, as each freeze-thaw consolidates the snow in the gullies and we still have good skiing down to the CAS car park. We made the most of Saturday when temperatures were minus 10 at the top, although we had a lot of work to do just to clear the car parks, keep the road clear and get the lifts back on after the storm – not to mention de-icing some of the tows.  The combination of wind and low temperature gave us a problem with our access road - in the end we had to close earlier than we would have liked. Sunday and Monday were lost to wind and rain, even at the top of the CAS - but it was back to snow and low temperatures yesterday which has resulted in the most popular mid-week day this season. We still have an excellent base for half term which starts on Friday and goes on to about the 24th February. This is traditionally our busiest time for skiers.   

Those in the marketing business will understand the concept of over-marketing i.e. when you can not deliver the product that is being promoted. This is a dilemma for all Scottish ski areas when marketing and promoting snowsports opportunities.  We often come under criticism for either over-marketing or under- marketing; once again it comes down so much to that unmanageable factor - the rapidly changing weather conditions.  We cannot manage the weather, but we try to manage the service and we continually look for ways of ensuring everyone has a positive experience. We do receive a lot of customer feedback which is really helpful. We often get positive and negative comments on the same day – so much of the experience depends on a chain of events all working well.   

At Cairn Gorm our snowsports marketing strategy is based on trying to provide as much accurate information as possible, keeping this updated in various forms for visitors on-site and off-site.  In this way expectations of a blue sky powder day (which we do get occasionally) can be kept realistic. The web site is increasingly important and we try to update this as early as possible as well as throughout the day. Ceefax is another useful point of information. Recorded messages on the phones are also an option, particularly when we are busy as often all operators are serving customers on site. We will always try and put photos on the site to show people what he conditions are like and web cams also help – but sometimes they don’t show the best angles and can put people off. Often looking up from Aviemore is deceptive – thin white lines on the runs suggesting not much skiing when the skiing can be excellent. If there were trees between the runs rather than  rocks it would give a totally different impression. We invested in electronic road signs to provide updates and monitors and boards on the hill. However we have learned from bitter experience that signage does not always work and the best way to manage the influx of numbers at the start of the day is to have people on hand to direct customers appropriately. Many of these are volunteer ambassadors, who do a great job supporting Scottish skiing in this way.  Having committed to providing this detail (which people expect these days) it only takes one change not to be updated, on one system, for the information chain to break down. We are constantly chasing internally to try and ensure this does not happen, but the reality is that it still does from time to time.Tomorrow the forecast is back into double figures (back down a snake), but hopefully the next ladder is a long one and just around the corner! 

 Bob   

11am Friday …..We have managed to get some of the team on site -just!  Still very stormy- lots of new snow  , we are doing what we can but this  is limited  until the winds decrease -  expected this afternoon and this evening . Quickest way up this morning was skiing up the Alt Mor trail - must be one of the best commutes in the country . The plan is to get everything up and running for Saturday- with the usual caveats of the weather.  Suspect catering deliveries may be lost in space.

bob