If you pick up a copy of the Scotsman today, head to page 16 of the magazine for a piece by Roger Cox on potential downwards expansion on CairnGorm Mountain. It's not available online, at least not yet.

Over the last few days I've also posted a couple of blog posts relating to matters arising from the 'Parking charges' thread and on the Gondola concept which has come up numerous times:

Gondola: [www.winterhighland.info]

Parking: [www.winterhighland.info]

At approximately 3.5km, a Glenmore Gondola would be longer than the Nevis Range Gondola, but with modern ropeway technology a journey time of around 8 to 9 minutes when operating at full speed.




Edited 1 times. Last edit at 20.29hrs Sat 20 Aug 11 by alan.

Sorry, Alan, I have just posted about a gondola in the car-parking charges thread. More relevant here now. Adam

Copied from Parking thread:





Edited 1 times. Last edit at 21.46hrs Sat 20 Aug 11 by alan.

Agree that this is a great idea. Over its life it would save all the road and car park clearing and maintenance costs, and as well as the guaranteed tourist income the climbers would have to contribute to get up the hill. The development of a couple of classic downhill mountain bike trails would add to the income and make it the real year round resort they wish it to become.

The question is how much would the lift cost? And will finding the cash ever be possible?

Someone get onto that pair of lardasses that won the 151 million. They looked like outdoorsy types ;-)

I think a key point here is, as I intimated to Roger during the Scotsman interview for the aforementioned article, that yes, it will always boil down to money, but where else in the country other than a ski centre can you have thousands of people in one place all partaking in healthy outdoor activity? There are innumerable reasons to support this principle, whether it is the obscure (fewer fatties occupying hospital beds) or the more immediately apparent (huge consequential cash injections to rural and national economies). Is it not time for the government to be more proactive in their support of Scottish skiing? I have provided proof of concept that snowmaking can provide 100+ ski days at low elevation (i.e. Coire Cas carpark to Glenmore) - now is the time for somebody with vision to investigate this as a matter of urgency.

Roger's enthusiasm certainly shone through in the article,and skiing down a tree covered run to Glenmore would be fantastic. A very interesting and ground breaking dissertation Jamie.



Helen

I touched upon something in the parking thread in a slightly different context that I feel worth repeating. Why allow more people to access the hill than uplift reasonably supports? Even a conservative gondola can carry more people per hour than the funicular doing back to back journeys, and that itself puts the draglifts to shame. Improvements would need to be made to the rest of the hill, such as the proposed home run and upper mountain uplift capacity, to make it more than yet another white elephant.

Gotta get a copy of the dissertation from you to read Jamie :-)




Edited 1 times. Last edit at 02.33hrs Sun 21 Aug 11 by andytb.

That comes back to a couple of the points in the parking charges thread,a sizeable proportion of those who park in the car parks are not using any of the uplift including the funicular, plus the need to cope well with the morning rush.

Sounds very sensible in many ways.

It seems a much better use of capital investment than re-opening the Ciste chair lifts but would obviously be much more expensive.

A key question which needs to be answered is would the people of Glenmore be in favour. For sure, they would welcome the fact that the road to Glenmore no longer gets blocked by traffic but would they welcome all the developments associated with a base station at Glenmore? It seems likely that those who live in Glenmore do so to get away from the hustle and bustle of Aviemore

Bah! Too late to get a copy of the article. Don't suppose a kind soul could provide a digital copy?

[living.scotsman.com] Enjoy JC . Got to wait until the Monday to get online access to Roger Cox's Saturday column in the Scotsman.

[Admin Edit]

New Scotsman Website, Link is now: [www.scotsman.com]

Helen



Edited 2 times. Last edit at 23.56hrs Wed 21 Dec 11 by alan.

Thanks h11lly for posting the article, and congratulations Jamie. Experience at Clashindarroch has shown remarkable protection of natural snow cover afforded by a combination of trees and aspect, enhanced by trail grooming. Regarding a Cairngorm - Glenmore ski run/trail, I noticed in April 2011 (while plodding down the road from the Cas to the Ciste car parks) that the slope traversed by the ski road immediately below the Cas car park gets the full afternoon sun in the springtime. On my visit it had thus lost all its snow, and there were no roadside snowbanks surviving. Yet, rounding the shoulder towards the Ciste, the roadside snowbanks remained massive and solid due to their aspect. This in turn suggests that the same contrasting conditions would affect any downhill route through the forest, and therefore such a route might best drop into the trees from the Ciste area rather than from anywhere further west (with the caveat that others will know far more about the forest terrain below the Ciste than I do).

If this argument is tenable, 4 points come to mind:

1 -- Existing downhill runs, with an extension here or there, more or less give access into the Ciste (but see 4 below), so downhill skiers and boarders would have ready access to such a route, which would be great.

2 -- Nordic skiers would benefit hugely from the forest section of the route (Clashindarroch look out!) but many would lack the skills or equipment to access the Ciste from above the trees via the existing downhill runs.

3 -- Point 2 begs the question "Could the gondola route be tweaked to include a mid-station in the general area of the existing Ciste car park?", thus affording Nordic skiers a starting point near the trees (and a start point for exciting woodland trails in summer).

4 -- If point 3 is feasible, this in turn could strengthen the case for rehabilitating the Ciste area in many ways.

I've just left a message on the new gondola route and piste proposal. I so hope this gets the go ahead.

Quote:
On my visit it had thus lost all its snow, and there were no roadside snowbanks surviving.

The effect of being in the Sun during the warmest part of the afternoon is very noticeable with the Daylodge Poma later in the season, the bank on the uphill side of the top section of the ski road shares this aspect - perfectly aligned for maximum solar warming. However, crucially the road surface itself does not, the subtle difference in pitch of the road out of the Cas car parks would make a significant reduction in directly received solar radiation.

Snowfencing on skiers left based on a horizontal rail system would also help reduce direct solar input, though it maybe the case that the Sugar Bowl down is easier to maintain than even say the existing Carpark Runs, due to the degree of protection the forest affords the snow.

Alan wrote <Snowfencing on skiers left based on a horizontal rail system would also help reduce direct solar input>

Now that's an interesting thought, Alan, especially if a Glenmore gondola resulted in no need for the road to carry two lanes of vehicle traffic. Part of the existing road surface could be released for a groomed run with sufficient room to create a structure to protect the route from direct sun.

This seems a better idea to me ...

Attachments: Gorm Gondola 2.JPG (141kB)