Morag and I went up Cairn Gorm Thursday 6th August via Windy Ridge and down the Fiaccaill of Coire Cas, all in glorious weather. We started out just after 10.30 but even so met numerous folk going up on Windy Ridge and, even by that time, others coming down. On the whole route we met,…
Author: Drennan Watson
Ray Sefton asserts, in a comment on my post on the reason for the disaster at Cairn Gorm (see here), that opposition by environmental groups caused highly damaging conditions to be inserted in the Visitor Management Plan for Cairn Gorm post the construction of the funicular railway. In particular, he asserts the imposition of a…
Alistair Bell’s open letter published on 2nd January (see here) was fascinating as an insider’s tale of what has happened to downhill skiing on Cairn Gorm. But I disagree with his final conclusion. Basically, he tackles the old issue “Cock-up or Conspiracy” and decides it was a conspiracy along the lines of the Gas Lighting…
[A version of this post appeared as a letter in the Press and Journal on 14th September in response to a letter from Gordon Benton on 3rd September] A number of people and interests are advocating expansion of the facilities on Cairn Gorm to include a hill station to solve ongoing financial problems. It would…
Looking back on my long involvement in conflicts on Cairn Gorm what always strikes me is that the main cause has not be tensions between landuses but simple incompetence – particularly by HIDB/HIE. Now Highlands and Islands Enterprise is having to take over a bankrupt company running the facility for the second time and there…