With the funicular re-opened, the natural advantage that Cairngorm Mountain has over Scotland’s other downhill snowsports areas due to its altitude has been very apparent this week. While the other resorts have no snow, the beginner slopes in the Ptarmigan bowl are stlll in good condition.
Over 1000ft below, Cairngorm Mountain’s unnatural advantages over other ski resorts is also evident from the webcams. The beginner’s area, with snow created from a snow factory and which is served by magic carpets installed at the end of last year, is surviving the thaw conditions very well thanks to seemingly unlimited funding from Highlands and Islands Enterprise.
It is mid-term, the weather has been good and this last week tickets for snowsports at Cairn Gorm have been sold out while the Coire Cas car park, which has been reduced in size, has been full. It was good to see therefore that Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd had arranged a shuttle bus service to ferry customers up to the Cas from the Coire na Ciste car park.
The only shame is the bus is not designed to transport people in ski boots and carrying Skis/Boards/Poles.
There is also a complete lack of facilities for visitors forced to park at the Ciste.
Cairngorm Mountain had previously undertaken that when a shuttle bus was in operation it would provide temporary toilet facilities at the Ciste and used to install them outside this building. They have failed to do so this week. The building itself, which could have provided a cafe and toilets, remains boarded up. The notices telling people to keep away because it is dangerous are completely misleading because a structural engineering report, obtained through a Freedom of Information request, shows the building is sound and could still be used.
Meantime the bins provided for the campervan park at the Ciste have been nailed shut!
The lack of mobile toilets and bins may save management at Cairngorm Mountain Scotland Ltd some bother but what message does it give the public? This provides further evidence that the Ciste would be far better managed by the Aviemore and Glenmore Community trust.
While Cairngorm Mountain is awash with money for some things, such as repair of the funicular and the production of the patch of snow by the Day Lodge, elsewhere its management appears to be scrimping and saving with no consideration of the consequences. They still don’t appear to understand that how the place and the people who visit it are cared for counts.
How can it possibly become any clearer to Ivan McKee MSP…the minister with responsibility for HIE. With a CEO that doesn’t understand the very basics of customer service then how can the hill business ever be rebuilt? To fail to honour the agreement to provide Portaloos in the Ciste carpark whenever Shuttle buses are in use was breathtakingly arrogant….but….the lack of any consideration for customers is much worse. Several hundred vehicles can be parked in the Ciste carpark and it would seem to be obvious that rubbish disposal facilities are necessary. For customers to find that the bins are nailed shut can’t possibly be making a good impression to say nothing of the fact that some folk might just dump their rubbish there anyway….the wind would soon remove it. Providing a bus that is little more than a mini bus with no real room for snowsports equipment is also evidence of the poor customer service and the penny pinching strategy now being followed
A quote from the Cairngorm website. “Our car park(in Coire Cas) is undergoing a major overhaul to provide a much warmer welcome and experience for all our visitors. You’ll find clearly marked parking bays, pedestrian pathways to walks, improved signage to let you find your way around the resort, incredible viewpoints together with benches and green space. We are finalising the new carpark in stages so there will always be parking spaces for you, whenever you visit us”!!! What it failed to say was that (1) as the number of parking spaces has been reduced there may not be enough room and you will therefore need to park at Coire na Ciste, (2) where there are no basic facilities, (3) you will have to wait, and possibly queue, for a shuttle bus to take you and all your equipment to the next carpark in Coire Cas, (4) where you may have to queue again for the funicular, (5) the incredible views and green spaces already existed, (5) the views were better but we decided to block some of them with a three container high snow factory! Now that’s customer service for you.
No37 bus to Cairngorm Mt only going as far as Glenmore yesterday afternoon. Quite a few disappointed visitors in Aviemore. What was that about reducing car journeys?
Perhaps some people should realise that despite previous poor management, the running of Cairngorm Mountain is not such a easy obstacle that can be overcome quickly and that the new operators have much to do. I suggest that some detacters should give it a break and just let them get on with it
I am giving them a break. I haven’t been since 2018. I used to love skiing at Cairngorm, but it has just got worse and worse. It is on the cusp of actually unusable.
The management has not changed in years. The only new faces are generally in catering and the lefties. So they don’t warrant anymore time. I would defend them to the hilt but no more.