[Post corrected 16th December 18.15]
A week ago Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd posted a video on facebook (see here) in preparation for the official opening of the new ski season on 19th December. Both interim CEO Susan Smith and Colin Matthews referred to the excellent snow cover on the mountain. As the video panned across the slopes it showed a large brown stain on the beginner’s ski slope. This was recently engineered in an attempt to improve its snow holding capacity and make the artificially created snow from the snow factory at the nearby car park go further.
I had thought that the said smoothing works accounted for the brown stain:
The great Cairngorms ecologist Adam Watson pointed out years ago that snow does not lie well on bare peat. Unless the peat is heavily frozen, the snow is not cushioned from the water in the peat and melts from below. Hence I believed the brown stain. In such situations the use of piste bashers, which press the snow down into the peat, make it melt even more quickly.
I have been informed, however, that the brown snow was in fact snow cleared from the car park and been asked to remove the post. I think it is better to accept that I did not get all the facts right. The bulldozing of dirty snow full of grit from the car park raises other issues about how far Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd is caring for the environment.
In my view dirty snow, along presumably with some of the grit that was used to resurface the Coire Cas car park last summer, should not be being spread over ski slopes at Cairn Gorm. Perhaps CMSL was prompted to do this precisely because snow melts so quickly on this slope? One wonders if CMSL consulted the Scottish Environment Protection Agency?
I had thought when I first saw the video that the Parkswatch’s concerns about the slope smoothing planning application (see here), (here), (here) and (here), and the standard of the subsequent work (see here), had been vindicated. That I accept remains to be seen. With the Cairngorm Mountain webcams showing the snow has now gone from lower Coire Cas, it will be interesting to see what happens when the snow from the snow factory is spread over these slopes if they open as promised on Friday. It is difficult to see how snow spread over this peaty surface will survive much traffic from skiers and boarders, particularly when temperatures are forecast to be above freezing until later in the weekend.
The snow factory is still in the wrong place and producing snow artificially to spread over bog appears to me just the latest in a long history of bad decisions at Cairn Gorm. There was an alternative but Highlands and Islands Enterprise ignored Graham Garfoot’s suggestion that heather cutting would be far less damaging, cheaper and more effective (see here).
The slope smoothing works were described in Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd’s latest accounts, which were published at the end of November, as an improvement:
I’d urge the current Directors of CMSL, including Highland Council Convener Bill Lobban, and members of the Cairngorms National Park Authority Board who approved the planning application, to go and monitor the situation for themselves. Neither seem to be aware of how both the environment and snowsports at Cairn Gorm continue to be trashed, at enormous expense to the public. That, I am afraid, won’t stop until they start to challenge HIE and HIE is removed from the mountain.
Another disaster from HiE, how long can this go on without someone getting sacked?
Your report is inaccurate. Local skier and ski tourer Graeme Pringle posted on his facebook page on 9th December about this, complete with photo. The snow that is featured is snow that has been ‘harvested’ from the car park – hence the colour of the snow.
Parkswatch should remove this inaccurate and untruthful post
Hi Keith, my apologies for the error, I have corrected. I just couldn’t believe that CMSL would be allowed to bulldoze dirty snow from the car park onto the piste. I would be interested to know whether, as a Director of Cairngorm Mountain Trust, you support that practice?
Is Keith still a member of the Funicular Response Group? If so it would also be good to hear his comments on your posts about that particular debacle too.
I have looked at Graeme Pringle’s FB pictures and it appears that you are partially correct. However, looking closely at the photo also appears to show gravel mixed in with that snow with maybe a few other contaminants thrown in for good measure. Gravel is not very friendly to ski bases which as an insructor you will well know. The real point is that, because of the bull-dozing to provide a “smooth” beginner area, the rotting vegetation, i.e. peat, which produces an exothermic reaction and is now in contact with the snow, will melt the underneath faster than when there was a layer of grass/ heather acting as insulation, unless there is a big freeze before the next snowfall. During a thaw therefore the snow will melt from above as well as below and machinery tracking across the slope will squeeze dirty brown water out of the peat just as you squeeze water out of a sponge!
Mmm, skiing on grit eh. I guess it’s one way to keep speed down but not so much fun if you fall on your face. How much longer will incompetence be allowed to reign on the mountain? I’ll be in the area over Christmas and I’ll be interested to see what condition the beginners slope is in by then.
Ian, if you are up for it pictures would be appreciated.
Sure, no bother Graham.
Sorry Graham, in view of tonight’s government announcement I won’t be getting up there for the foreseeable future but when I do I’ll swing by the ski area.
Feel free to completely ignore the government if they told you to jump off a bridge would you?
Steph. Feel free to break the law and contest it in court if you have sufficient resources, which I’m afraid I do not.
We need some human rights lawyers prepared to take this on and challenge the Scottish Government
It really makes you wonder why they didnt convert the Cas carpark into a beginners slope and move the parking to the Ciste……. it would not be out the realms of belief…..
Circus Maxima. They tried that last winter in the lower Cas carpark beside the tube slide.
Who wants to ski on gritty, brown snow? There’s often brownish snow at the Lecht and the bottom of Sunny Side at Glenshee due to the snow lying on peat when there’s a thaw but at least it doesn’t contain road sweepings.
I was teaching a family of beginners on Monday 21 December, and was pleasantly surprised by the condition of the pisted Snow Factory snow. Especially after all the preceding mild, wet weather.
I can’t say what the condition of the ground is like below the snow, but the skiing snow conditions were pretty good.
The available lower slope has also been utilised by the race training groups ATC and Cairngorm Ski Club.