[Parkswatch is very pleased to publish this open letter from Canada about the situation at Cairn Gorm]
Gaslighting is a form of psychological manipulation in which a person, or organization, seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or in members of a targeted group, making them question their own memory, perception, and sanity. The 1944 psychological thriller “Gaslight” stars Ingrid Bergman & Charles Boyer. The film’s title alludes to how the abusive husband (Boyer) slowly dims the gas lights in their Edwardian home, while pretending nothing has changed, in an effort to make his wife (Bergman) doubt her own perceptions. He also uses the lights in the sealed-off attic to secretly search for jewels belonging to his wife’s aunt whom he murdered many years ago. He makes loud noises as he searches, including talking to himself. The wife repeatedly asks her husband to confirm her perceptions about the dimming lights, noises and voices, but in defiance of reality, he keeps insisting that the lights are the same and instead it is she who is going insane. He intends on having her assessed and committed to a mental institution, after which he will be able to gain power of attorney over her and search more effectively. Using denial, misdirection, contradiction, and lying, gaslighting involves attempts to destabilize the victim and delegitimize the victim’s beliefs. Gaslighting can be committed by anyone and can be especially detrimental when the perpetrator has a position of power.
In the Donald Trump era of post-truth politics, the situation at Cairngorm Mountain has resulted from years of fake news and lies, known as corporate gaslighting. We believed that the future of skiing was the top priority of Cairngorm Mountain management. With this belief, we allowed the slow removal of uplift and infrastructure on the mountain, without question, until there was nothing left. Lifts were not modernised or replaced because we wanted to believe the management. New lifts were coming in several years, when the company has enough capital. Don’t worry, everything will be just fine in 5-10 years. With the few remaining ski lifts closed after failing health and safety inspections, plus the indefinite closure of the funicular railway, bankruptcy seems inevitable. This was not the result of global warming, climate change, incompetent management, or lack of financial investment. This was a deliberate plan to force skiing off the mountain. A plan that started during the failed expansion into Lurcher’s Gulley in 1981.
My late father, Alan Bell (1934 – 2019) from Blackpool, Lancashire, was a BASI III instructor. Alan had taught himself to ski at Glencoe in the late 1950’s before moving east to the fledgling resort at Cairn Gorm. In December 1961, the White Lady detachable Chairlift opened. It was a joint venture between the Swiss company GMD Mueller and the British Ropeway company, who specialised in aerial ropeways for mining projects. The project was overseen by Bob Clyde, an engineer from Glasgow. The Chairlift was a hybrid, based on a 4-person, detachable Gondola system, but with out-facing, two-seater chairs. This was extended down to the car park in 1964. During the 1960’s, new Mueller T-bars were added nearly every year, establishing the largest choice for skiers in Scotland. By the early 1970’s, Coire na Ciste was opened up for skiing. Coire na Ciste T-bar at the top of the mountain opened in 1972, followed by the Ptarmigan T-bar in 1973. The Ciste and West Wall chairlifts were built in late 1973 and opened in early 1974. The first departure from Mueller – the Aonach poma was built in 1977. So many people had struggled, working for days, weeks, months and years, in often atrocious weather, some on a volunteer basis, as they strove to make commercial skiing on the hill a reality. It paid off too. During the skiing boom of the 1980’s, there were over 7000 skiers on the mountain per day. Aviemore was transformed from a sleepy Highland train station into a world class, state of the art tourist destination.
Cairngorm offered the most diverse, excellent skiing Scotland had to offer. Can we imagine how horrified those pioneers would react to the current status?
I was 3½ years-old when my father began teaching me to ski in a field below the Coire na Ciste car park in March 1974. The following ski seasons were spent in ski school under the watchful eye of the wonderful Hazel Bain.
By 1980, my father was teaching full time. Consequently, we spent every weekend on the hill from January until April from 1980-1986. In 1981, I remember Bob Clyde unveiling plans to develop Lurcher’s Gulley & Coire an t-Sneachda following the successful installation of the M1 & Fiacaill Ridge pomas, plus the extension to the Car Park T-bar. When those plans were rejected, much to everyone’s surprise, shock was replaced by a growing concern that a backlash was forming against the existing ski area itself. The Day Lodge poma was the last lift be installed in 1987, linking Coire Cas car park with the mid station of Coire na Ciste chairlift, via the Aonach, thus completing the dream envisaged by Bob Clyde in the 1960’s.
Uplift on the mountain was finally complete, but there were obvious problems. For example, Mueller lifts were designed in the 1950s for ski resorts in the Swiss and French alps. They rarely had to contend with exposed, treeless, rolling mountains, constantly pounded by prevailing westerly winds from the north Atlantic Ocean. Uplift regularly shut down at Cairngorm due to deropement on the pylons. In gusty, high winds, the chairs and T-bars acted like sails, literally pulling the haul rope off the sheave trains. Sheave trains are the blocks of pulleys mounted to each pylon to support the moving haul rope.
It was time to focus on the future. Gerhard Mueller died in 1985. The company was taken over by employees, following a management buy-out, but Mueller lifts were considered dinosaurs at this stage following the innovations of companies, such as Poma, France and Dopplemeyer in Switzerland Mueller lifts went bankrupt in 1992. Most notably, both Poma & Dopplemeyer had developed sheave trains that were far more resistant to wind. The logical approach was to consider a high capacity Gondola from Poma or Dopplemeyer, similar to the access Gondola at Aonach Mor, on the Nevis Range, near Fort William, to replace the White Lady & Car Park chairlifts. Many of us believed this would happen.
Flash forward to May 1994. My father, mother and I were having dinner at Loch Insh with Clive & Sally Freshwater, plus friends from the Cairngorm Chairlift Company Ltd., as it was. The atmosphere was solemn. Bob Clyde had recently died. During his funeral, mourners paid tribute to the man who was essentially the founder of commercial skiing at Cairngorm Mountain. His engineering background was essential in building the White Lady Chairlift and the original Shieling. What followed were two conversations that I’ve never forgotten. Whenever plans were rejected for expansion at Cairngorm, a conservationist lobby group, who had allegedly gained considerable power and influence within the UK Tory government, under Margaret Thatcher and the Scottish Office, were automatically blamed. Their goal, allegedly, although never made official, was ostensibly to remove all the ski lifts from the hill, remove access to walkers, climbers and skiers and seal off the entire mountain. Success relied on engaging in a plan to lie and misdirect the public.
The following discussion involved the proposed replacement of the Car Park & White Lady chair lifts. Prior to the official announcement, the general consensus was the high capacity, detachable Gondola. This included the bottom station being located down at Glenmore with a new car park adjacent to the existing snow gates. There would be no vehicular access by the public onto the mountain, thereby removing a huge environmental issue of having hundreds of cars on the mountain each day.
Clive Freshwater asked for silence at the table before announcing the new lift; a cable driven funicular railway. Everyone at the table momentarily froze, complete with a look of utter incredulity. Why a funicular? Official publicity claimed there would be increased passengers per hour resulting in very little queuing, full access to the Shieling, the White Lady and Coire Cas. There would be no unsightly lift towers or steel cables, no high-wind closures and no issues with snow blockage due to the tracks being raised off the ground by concrete supports. It’s very rare for an engineering project of this scale to make such claims because they were all lies. Construction costs spiralled during the build, making it one of the most expensive ski lifts ever built. Aside from the middle station being located in the wrong place, 80 metres uphill from the Shieling, located next to the bottom of the M1 poma. It was a perilous, exhausting walk to the Shieling. Consequently, the Shieling eventually closed due to lack of customers. The funicular became notorious for long queues as wait times significantly increased. The base station at the Day Lodge up to the mid station above the Shieling were blocked with every major blizzard. The entire system was beleaguered with technical issues that often caused the train to stop for hours, sometimes several days. There were too many design errors and too many operating issues that didn’t plague contemporary systems around the world. I’m unsure if the funicular operated more efficiently than the previous two chairlifts. I doubt it was even close.
In 2005, a much bigger problem appeared with the funicular. I had climbed the Burma road, to the west of Aviemore, on my mountain bike. At the pass, before the drop down into Glen Dulnain, I had a clear view across the Spey valley to Cairngorm. It was late May, but there were still some considerable patches of snow on the Headwall, Coire Cas, Lurcher’s Gully, but none on the White Lady. The funicular track looked like an ugly gouge had been cut into the mountain. Even with binoculars, I had great difficulty finding the towers on the West Wall Chair, the White Lady tow or the M1 poma. No unsightly towers indeed. Worst of all, I realized that the funicular had bisected the White Lady run. The huge concrete supports for the track acted like a giant snow fence, preventing snow from filling the gully that had once been the most famous and enjoyable run on the hill. The icing on the cake was the required safety distance of 30 feet from each side of the track in the event of the haul rope snapping. Surely this was obvious prior to construction? Yes, I believe it was.
My father discussed these concerns with his old friend, Willie McKenna, that evening in the Winking Owl. Willie had worked a Pisten Bully on the hill for many years before taking a job with the Rothiemurchas estate. Alan and I were incredulous as we listened to Willie’s account of what was happening behind the scenes at Cairngorm Mountain.
The decision to build the funicular was, in part, to appease the environmental lobby and complete the plan to remove uplift. Visitors would be confined to the funicular, preventing them venturing onto the mountain, except for the viewing platform at the new Ptarmigan restaurant, thus turning the mountain into a sort of museum / botanical garden. To avoid the obvious outcry from the established skiing community and the many local businesses and hotels in the Spey valley, global warming & climate change were to be used as the justification for this core lift policy.
The Ciste & West Wall chairs were mothballed during the non-winter of 2002, followed by the removal of the Fiaccaill T-bar in 2005. Next on the hit list was the Aonach Poma, one of the very best advanced “red runs” Cairngorm had to offer. I was skiing down the Aonach in March 2006. The lift looked unusually quiet until I realized the haul rope had been removed. I asked the liftie on the West Wall poma what was going on. He replied that the lift was in a “go” situation following its annual servicing. However, a decision had been made the previous week to remove the haul rope. No explanation or press release was provided. Consequently, the Aonach Poma would never run again. By this point, season ticket holders and visitors appeared to be in a state of collective denial. There should have been outrage, not apathy. Several months later, the M1 poma was scheduled for dismantling. No reason was provided, but the Scottish Ski Council were informed. They had provided a funding grant for the installation of the lift in 1980. Cairngorm Mountain was threatened with legal action, saving the M1 poma from demolition. Sadly, the White Lady tow was chosen to be removed instead, no later than 2010 (for reasons unknown).
Politically, this was difficult to achieve. This tow was the workhorse on the mountain, transporting skiers to the top of the mountain’s most prestigious run and often used as an alternative when it was too windy to run the White Lady chairlift. Remove it and the only way to the Ptarmigan will be the M1 poma if the funicular was out of service. This required a very steep walk from the Shieling to a now worn out Poma that is plagued with technical issues, regularly out of service for days on end, its service life had expired in 2010. The White Lady tow was in perfect working order. How could they permanently put the Lady out of business, short of a natural disaster? Bingo.
The White Lady tow incident in 2007 was particularly egregious, considering the huge sums of money that had recently been spent investing in the 40-year-old lift. The drive station had been renovated, using parts from the White Lady & Car Park chairlift, including a new gearbox to remove the famous “scream”. The haul rope had been replaced in 2004 and I believe all the T-bars had been upgraded too, just two years before, in 2005, with much safer spring-boxes. What followed was deplorable; the return bullwheel at the top station of the White Lady tow was deliberately neglected. Zero maintenance was carried out in the autumn as the other lifts were serviced before the first snows came. Without the usual thick layers of grease to protect it, the bearing housing filled up with water, froze, expanded repeatedly, eventually causing the steel itself to tear, leading to a catastrophic failure. The liftie started the motor on that fateful day. The return bullwheel at the top station immediately sheered off from the return gantry. The haul rope, at full tension, catapulted the bullwheel at incredible speed, crashing into the next pylon, completely destroying it. The mangled remains of the bullwheel landed on the snow fencing, tore it to shreds and finally skidded a quarter way down the east side of the White Lady before hitting a snow drift. The resulting shock wave from the haul rope caused tremendous damage to the lift’s pylons. The T-bars acted like deadly missiles, destroying everything in their path. For the rest of the season, nothing was done to remove the T-bars or the severed haul rope from further damaging the remaining pylons. Did this outrageous act of corporate vandalism make the headlines? Of course not.
As with the rest of the uplift at Cairngorm, the management took full advantage of our complete ignorance of ski lift engineering. We accepted the findings of whatever nonsense the management told us in bogus reports. The incident with the White Lady tow was reported as accidental negligence and swept under the carpet. At the season ticket holder’s AGM, the following year, a question was asked about reinstating the White Lady tow. The answer was simple, “There are no plans to reinstate the White Lady tow.” We sat idly by as the drive station was sold for scrap to Glenshee in 2009, whilst the remaining pylons slowly disappeared over the next year. The 2010 deadline had been reached.
The link poma was moved from the Ciste Chair / West Wall middle station to the plateau about the same time the Aonach Poma’s substation was removed, removing all trace of the lift. The link poma was renamed the Polar Express (how amusing). It was promoted as a new lift from new investment in infrastructure. However, it had been sold for cheap from its original location at the Aviemore dry ski slope where it had stood since 1981. Neither new, nor an investment. The lift expired its service life in 2006.
From 2009, winter conditions improved dramatically. In early 2010, skiers were interviewed by BBC & ITV news, in the Coire na Ciste car park, complaining about the lack of uplift in the Ciste and West Wall. They had to wait in long queues for a bus to take them back to the Coire Cas car park. Any promise to reinstate the chairlifts from the management to avoid growing public hostility during this fiasco? Absolutely not.
Around this time, I wondered if summer mountain biking was possible using the Coire na Ciste chairlift. I pitched the idea to former Olympic skier and current downhill trainer, Andrew Freshwater. I’ve known Andy since we were kids and we both share grave concerns for the future of skiing at Cairngorm. To our surprise, the mountain biking venture was welcomed with considerable enthusiasm. The Ciste Chair was to be taken out of mothballs and put to work. The first job was to clean and service the sheave trains on each pylon. The only pylon visible from the Ciste Carpark was pylon 1, located just above the old café. Both sheave trains were removed for servicing. During the summer of 2010, Andy wondered why the Ciste chair remained closed. Management informed him that current workloads left the Ciste project on “the back burner” with no priority. Servicing of all sheave trains was estimated to take 5-10 years. Andy realized we had been fooled. The sheave trains from pylon 1 were still absent the day it was felled in August 2017, crashing to the ground and sold for scrap. The most successful buzzword created by the management regarding the Ciste & West Wall chairlifts was “obsolete.” We accepted it without question until the Save the Ciste group valiantly fought to save both chairlifts.
Incidentally, I’ve been living in Vancouver, Canada for the past 14 years. My local ski hill is Cypress Mountain that operates two Mueller fixed grip, double chairlifts dating from 1971 & 1976 respectively. Whistler Mountain resort has retained two Mueller T-bars, built in 1965. In fact, there are many Mueller chairlifts and T-bars operating in Canada and the USA. Spare parts and service are provided in North America by Mueller Lifts, located in Vernon, British Columbia. There is also Rowena, the modern iteration of GMD Mueller lifts based in Europe. I respected the Save the Ciste Campaign for their passion and sheer determination. However, I did warn them that they would ultimately fail. I also mentioned the ski lifts due for removal based on the following lies;
The concrete bases on each tower need replacing therefore, it’s prohibitively costly.
The lift has expired its service life, preventing any chance of the required public liability insurance being issued
The lift is obsolete. Parts are no longer available.
These claims are interchangeable, false, and outrageous. Coire Cas T-bar was built in 1962. It’s the oldest lift still operating, but none of the above issues apply.
Without warning, the Coire na Ciste and the West Wall chairlifts were demolished in August 2017. Folks from Save the Ciste could not believe what they were witnessing as each pylon was felled like a tree, crashing to the ground before being cut into pieces and dumped in a huge skip located in the car park. The sensitive environment was treated like a construction site. Diesel oil and various industrial, highly toxic chemicals were allowed to contaminate the entire area. It was horrendous.
The Shieling platter lift, originally a T-bar (built in 1964) was suddenly removed and replaced with a rope tow – the most difficult, soul-destroying and dangerous type of lift available and certainly not for beginners. Contemporary resorts around the globe have installed user-friendly conveyors, known as magic carpet rides. The Shieling Sunkid, as it is now called, has proved to be very unpopular and driven beginners/ intermediate skiers to the Lecht.
We can speculate on which lift is next, but the damage has already been done.
It was obvious from the day the funicular went into service that skiing on Cairngorm mountain was doomed. Within 20 years, Scotland’s premiere ski resort has been completely destroyed, in slow motion and in plain sight. Nobody is held responsible, the local economy is devastated, and yet, many people still believe the management will be investing in new uplift and infrastructure for skiing at the Cairngorm of the future.
Finally, the state of the funicular;
The concrete bases on each tower need replacing. Therefore, it’s prohibitively costly.
Really? Where have we heard that before? Once again, people just accept this answer. Nobody called for an independent assessment. No attempt to hold Dopplemeyer and its sub-contractors accountable. Nothing.
Alternatively, the current state of inertia with the funicular may have been intentional, serving its purpose for the time required to remove uplift. Without the funicular, I cannot foresee the financial viability of commercial skiing given the low number of visitors this year.
Both Glenshee and Glencoe have spent the past several years investing in new, higher capacity chairlifts that always get the snowboarder’s approval. Cairngorm mountain removed their two remaining chairlifts.
If bankruptcy is announced in 2020, I can only think of one phrase; mission accomplished. However, the main question remains unanswered; who killed skiing at Cairngorm? Gaslighting succeeds because it’s insidious but extremely manipulative. By the time we realize we’ve been had, we’re so conflicted, at odds with ourselves and each other, not sure if we remember events clearly, that the damage has been done
The sad answer is, we killed skiing at Cairngorm. We spent 20 years of complicity as everything was removed from the mountain. We did nothing. No legal challenges, no court orders, not even any outrage registered in the local or national news.
I’m sure many will disagree, but, sadly, it’s what really happened.
Alistair Bell. December 2019.
Vancouver, Canada.
All problems on Cairngorm can certainly be traced back to the funicular construction in 2001. The huge sums of money invested by HIE meant that the train had to be a success. The project was flawed from the very beginning – the VMP means you can’t exit the top station in summer, therefore limiting repeat summer custom. With the lift company unable to pay the funicular debts the removal of skier up-lift was their flawed answer to cost cutting. However core lift policy simply limited their ability to make money from skiers when it did snow. An absolute shambles.
Without the funicular it appears very likely that Cairngorm ski area will suffer a slow painful death. Repairing the funicular, at huge cost, doesn’t address any of the underlying problems nor make the company profitable.
^ sorry, there seems to be problem with formatting longer comments ?
Doug, there is an issue about inserting spaces between paragraphs which causes paragraphs to be formatted in columns which I have never been able to fix – apologies, Nick
thanks! wont do it next time 🙂
Great article, very interesting historical view, others will have very differing views……but no matter….
The hill is in a truely sad state, squabbling continues, funds are short and the future isn’t looking great.
Let’s look to 2020 to contribute positively, respect each other, get involved and make a diference.
Happy New Year
Thank you Angus and, well noted.
This constructive approach is where we need to head together as a united community for 2020.
I argued the M1 poma elephant fencing would change the snow pact and it did. I couldn’t believe, having watched spindrift running across the White Lady and past the chairlift and onwards over Corrie Cas to the Ficiacle, dropping snow in the hollows as it went, that anyone in their right mind and with an interest in skiing could even think of bisecting the mountain with a rail.
Placing the mid station stop where snow traversed and lay was incomprehensible.
Removing pylons within the National Park and where there is strong anti infrastructure lobbying was insane.
Unless the idea was destruction of lift access snowsports and a burgeoning winter economy.
Alistair Bell, I’m glad to see you made the very wise decision to move to Canada when you did. Getting out when you could have was definitely the right decision
Passionate about funiculars, I came from Paris to Aviemore in May 2002 specially to visit the newly built funicular on Cairngorm Mountain.
Although warned, it was still a great disappointment at not being able to leave the perimeter of the Ptarmigan restaurant at the top of the funicular. People riding funiculars were prohibited on mountain trails! What an aberration!
I had not seen this anywhere else.
What to do at the top of the funicular?
The view from the terrace of the restaurant was also a deception.
Even the restaurant was not worth the detour! It was a simple snack, each Frenchman knows what a real restaurant is 🙂
I left Aviemore telling myself that I would never go back to Cairngorm Mountain!
This is what I wrote on my website in May 2002:
http://www.funimag.com/funimag22/CairnGorm03.htm
There is no truth in Alistair Bell’s ridiculous claim that “The decision to build the funicular was, in part, to appease the environmental lobby”.
Both local and national environmental organisations were strongly opposed to the funicular, from its first proposal and throughout the long campaign to try to stop it. Those environmental bodies also supported (or at least did not oppose) the alternative suggestion of a gondola, as being less environmentally damaging and more easily removed when no longer required. The access restrictions from the top would have applied whichever means of access was built.
Mr Bell’s attempt to pin the blame for the funicular fiasco on those who did their utmost to try to stop it is frankly disgraceful.
Nor is Mr Bell’s claim that “global warming & climate change were to be used as the justification for this [funicular] core lift policy” at all correct.
Firstly, environmental organisations on the whole made the decision not to use global warming and climate change in their arguments against the funicular, since the science at that time was far from clear.
Secondly, if there had been a clear prospect of global warming making skiing no longer possible, that would have counted against the funicular, because such a situation would have favoured an uplift system that was easily removable.
A good article although to think that there was some management intelligence manipulating this does make me smile.. There really should be an independant public enquiry called for on how and whyCairngorm has been mismanaged. Ski ing in Aviemore has and is the most important factor that has driven its success and will do again if an operator who really understandsski resort mountain management is brought in. The existing businesses in Aviemore are all in jeapordy as Cairngorm IS primarily a ski mountain …now with only 1000 skier uplifts compared to 4000 for the foresable fuure, no business can survive with that downturn . HIE have made some bad decisions and appointments and should , for their own benefit, ensure they are part of that call for an independant public enquiry. If Hillend, near Edinburgh , can go from near closure to developing an active skiing and activity centre… maybe the call from young skiers is needed…
Skiing has many groups appointed, or responsible for the sport.. GB ski, Snowsport Scotland, England and Wales, Ski Scotland. BASI, SSSA and so forth. Could they all put this on the agenda ??
You cant contribute positively until you openly debate thel facts brought about by this article. A call for a public enquiry would be a good start !
The article contains an an informative timeline of the past quarter century but can anyone really accept the central argument of conspiracy by environmentalists.Were not those most opposed to the funicular prominent environmentalists? And the implication is that management after 2000 or so,was rather than trying as best they could,was actually engaged in sabotage of the skiing up Cairngorm!! To me,it would seem mistakes,really big mistakes have been made.But many people committed to skiing have put in a great deal of effort for their sport. The implication of the article is that all concerned were being hoodwinked!That`s quite an insult.
The author seems to reject any climate change pressure.Fifty years ago snowless slopes on the second of January would have been an anomoly -not today as once again we experience rain and gales.
Cairngorm has not been the only snowsports centre to experience difficulties. Most or all of the others are struggling.
Snow making is perhaps viable for big Alpine resorts close to large population centres-maybe Scotland`s edge of the warming Atlantic makes that less of an option.
Sure, it would be great to see investment in decent uplift but perhaps it should be remembered where tall the money comes from.
Good article describing the destruction of Scotland’s premier ski resort. There can be no doubt that feeding the funicular was the ultimate object of the removal of many of the tows, particularly the White Lady tow. Just glad I was not anywhere near it when it finally let go. Most of the tows on Cairngorm have not seen a spanner in years. My generation spent huge amounts of time and effort getting the hill developed, I knew Bob Clyde and many of the folks mentioned in the text. Poor Bob must be spinning in his grave.
Yes, Roy Turnbull is correct – much of this open letter is pure fantasy and totally fails to identify where the real problems on Cairn Gorm originate – that was the transfer of the land on the upper slopes of Cairn Gorm from Forestry Commission ownership to the Highlands and Islands Development Board, in 1971, and to their successor body Highlands and Islands Enterprise. What has followed is 50 years of totally incompetent oversight by these two government agencies which will not be resolved until HIE are removed from the mountain.
I greatly enjoyed reading this post. The timeline of events was well put together and a number of well-remembered names from the past cropped up. My knowledge of the hill goes back to 1960 and the time when Dennis and Patricia Rosenfield ran the youth hostel. Over the years I witnessed much of the development – and the destruction. I do, however, feel that Alistair’s vision that it is all a giant plot by environmentalists to remove skiing from Cairngorm is considerably off beam. Roy Turnbull and Dick Webster both cite reason enough to destroy that central argument. But for me, three things shine through. First, that the history of Cairngorm Mountain since the boom years has been a catalogue of disastrous mistakes, wrong choices, secrecy and incompetence – from HIE down. Second, that whilst the history may not have been a gigantic plot to remove skiing from the hill, I fear that that may yet prove to be the consequence; and Third – I agree completely with Alistair’s closing conclusion – we are all to blame. We did not question enough; we did not delve underneath the layers of secrecy disguised as ‘commercial in confidence’; we did not make enough noise. The recollection of talk of a gondola from Glenmore recalls what was the right way forward, both environmentally and for the sport. It seems somehow that a determination to repair the failed and unwanted funicular implies that HIE continue to sleep-walk toward the cliff edge.
GreatCairn Gorm was crushed by a greater power
MONEY The love to enjoy beautiful skiing was badly managed. Yes Gaslighting was slowly suffocated the joy.
It is difficult to disagree with the view expressed with respect to Gaslighting. Even today, with hill business now reduced to a shadow of its former self and the destructive impact on the wider local economy…..there are no local stakeholder groups that publicly speak up. There is simple acceptance of the situation and HIE are left to continue with their incompetent management. The pending ‘Masterplan’ consultation will be as much of a sham as the SE Group report that cost plenty but delivered nothing.
Local people should be at the forefront of demands for immediate change. Sadly, the weak and muted response from Aviemore and Strathspey will simply lead to continued failure.
I cannot comment in any detail on all the events and failures of the past, but to put the driving force for the disaster that has befallen Cairn Gorm, to ‘gaslighting’ and appeasing the environmental lobby, I think credits HIE and the various operating companies with too much management ability and sense.
I’m basing this on my observations of HIE and CMSL mismanagement and ineptitude since the funicular was closed. Although we all need to learn from past mistakes, the key issue is the future. It’s very clear that HIE (and the part of the Scottish Government to which it reports), have already decided what they want to do, and are set on manipulating the so-called stakeholders such as CNPA, Highland Council and SNH into agreeing with them – very few others in HIE’s mind count!
It needs all of us to vehemently contest this ‘stitch up’ and put forward in the strongest way possible sensible proposals for visitor use of Cairn Gorm both summer and winter. In that small way I do agree with Alistair Bell – unless we do something radical now, the failure of Cairn Gorm will be on our conscience. Yes, money will need to be spent (even to return the mountain to nature) but HIE’s track record of spending £30M plus to wreck the Cairn Gorm business demonstrates absolutely clearly that they MUST NOT have any decision making powers over the future of Cairn Gorm – otherwise more failure is inevitable.
There seems to be much more debate about what’s happened and who’s to blame ( great fun but a complete waste of effort in my mind)
Just had a look at todays report from Ops1 about the snow conditions on the mountain, we’ve got a track of snow about one basher wide and no more than 200 mtrs long……I’d be interested to do a quick calc on what’s its cost to produce, how much revenue it will generate. Is it worth it in more than monetary terms, I can’t help thinking what a waste of human effort and resources…..the carbon footprint of that snow patch is probably worse than an oil rig!!!!
Well written and sadly plausible – we’re all to blame. It also serves as a mini-highland metaphor for what is Brexit and our relationship with the EU, so expertly manipulated by media barons and self-serving politicians and corporations.
The description of gaslighting within the article is great but to suggest that the public is complicit in it suggests that victims are in some way responsible for their abuse which is absolutely in poor taste.
Yes. The article does provide a brief history of Cairngorm skiing, but conspiracy versus cock up? I would go for the latter anytime, with a bit of the added spice of corruption and incompetence in almost every project from the Aviemore centre in the early sixties (Architect John Poulson did time), down Glenmore to the summit of Cairngorm is a trail of misspent public pounds. But all of this correspondence ignores the basic fact that Scottish skiing uplift is at best marginal economically. And whoever was running it now, with any of the uplift options available or currently being proposed, there would have been no skiing over the prime time holiday period, and will be none for the rest of this week because there is effectively no snow! Australia is burning, we are just melting. We must stand back and take a hard look at the way the climate is changing so rapidly, and ask whether mechanized uplift is a realistic option at all for Cairngorm.
Not only was John Poulson, the architect of the Aviemore Centre, sent to prison. George Pottinger, a Scottish Office senior civil servant, was also jailed for the corruption scandal that surrounded the early days of Aviemore development. Fast forward to the 1990s and we find Sir Fraser Morrison as chairman of HIE supporting the construction of a funicular railway on Cairn Gorm. He was also founder and chairman of Morrison Construction. Guess who got the contract to build the funicular. And what did the CEO of HIE, Iain Robertson, do soon after the contract was awarded to Morrison Construction – he left HIE and joined Morrison Construction as an employee. Robertson’s resignation from HIE was the final straw for Alan Blackshaw, a Board member of Moray, Badenoch and Strathspey Enterprise, who had been repeatedly refused access to HIE information about the funicular project and had been brushed off in all attempts to examine the financial viability of the proposed funicular. Blackshaw resigned from MBSE on 9 August 2000 and wrote to the Auditor General for Scotland on 2 September 2000 with a detailed account of the failings of HIE and MBSE in their promotion of the funicular project. Throughout the funicular saga Robertson repeatedly refused all requests to consider alternative uplift options, including new chairlifts and a gondola, insisting that a funicular, with its massive construction costs, was going to be built on Cairn Gorm irrespective of any opposition or better alternative. To understand why Cairn Gorm is a failed ski resort today we need look no further that the roles played by Fraser Morrison and Iain Robertson in the 1990s. Perhaps one day a public inquiry or even a criminal investigation might provide detailed answers. Meanwhile we can be confident that the primary objective of the HIE Board today is not to provide a viable future for Cairn Gorm mountain but to cover up what their predecessors did in the 1990s. Protecting and promoting private interests at the expense of public need and expectation is the primary objective of this so called public agency. No progress will be achieved on Cairn Gorm until they are removed from the mountain.
A very good history of ski development on Cairn Gorm since the 1960s by Aliistair Bell. However, much of the funicular problems were caused by conservation groups who objected to the building of the funicular. Their objections influenced planning conditions and led to the crazy Visitor Management Plan (VMP), which, in my opinion, led to the financial disaster.
The funicular was built as a summer attraction and without the restrictive VMP it could have made a profit which would have enabled tows to be improved.
As we have seen in recent years skiing conditions have become more unpredictable. It is important to build other attractions on this unprotected are of Cairn Gorm.
Having worked on Cairngorm for many years a gondola would have been just as much of a disaster, most days you would think you were on a fairground ride with the wind on Cairngorm, you would know that if you ever stood catching swinging chairs on the old chairlift, or the many days it couldn’t operate again due to the wind, a gondola…. well that’s a joke surely.
I for one wish they would stop throwing money at Cairngorm, everybody remembers the good days of sking but 30 odd years ago we had winters with no snow, and got paid off, and yet it was a 100 times better when my old Boss ran the place.
Fascinating to read this, great effort everyone, from the author to the very helpful comments below. Personally, I’m an environmentalist, skier (especially touring and ‘natural’ skiing), mountain biker and mountain lover from the North of England. I get up to Scotland and especially Aviemore when I can. I’m on the periphery of this but you could loosely call me a stakeholder and critical friend, in that I care about the present and future of the Highlands and people’s ability to access, play, work and thrive alongside nature’s right to thrive.
Professionally I’m an independent facilitator and organisational consultant with some background in activism, and a specialist in inclusive, collective decision making and planning across diverse and conflicting needs and views, and various stakeholders.
I might be interested in some chatting and planning with a view to embarking on a constructive and useful process to help find some sustainable solution that benefits everyone.
I’m not promising magic, but if you feel like you can represent some of the views of any of the stakeholders, and are passionate about Cairngorm’s future, please do get in touch to arrange a chat.
http://www.2bwow.org.uk
Now I understand the comment above about the columns! 🙂
I’ve only just discovered this thread, and can only applaud Alistair for an excellent authorative account. Brought up on skis on the mountain from the mid-sixties onwards the article brought back so many memories, and provided the detail on the demise of the mountain and with that the local economy. Just as in the film Gaslight, the abusers only get more enraged when outed. Congratulations on a great article, the tribute to the pioneers, and telling it as it is/ was. Enjoy your skiing.