Many Alpine ski areas use rope tows to plug inconvenient gaps in their lift networks. I think there are several spots in Scotland where even a cheap portable rope tow would improve things :-

At Glencoe, in the bowl below the Flypaper and East Ridge so you can enjoy the full extent of the snowfields without having to climb back out. Another in the shallow valley on the far east of the plateau below the top of the access chair so you can ski the eastern edge of the plateau and half way down to the car park without a muddy trudge back to the bottom of the access chair. Another below the Wall T bar so you don't have to trudge out of the bowl if you go right down to the very bottom of Etive Glades. Another 2 above both Cliffy and Wall T bar so you don't have to push to get to top lifts.

At Glenshee to link the bottom of Clunie to the bottom of the Meall Odhar Poma. Another to link the top of Beag to the bottom of Caenlochan Poma. A third below all 3 lifts in Coire Fionn so you don't have to climb up from the bottom of the Coire Fionn pomas to get to the queue for Glas Maol and so you can ski the north east ridge of Coire Fionn fully without a walk back or premature traverse.

At The Lecht to improve access to Buzzard from the base lodge and from Falcon & Harrier.

Portable rope tows have the added advantage of being able to be moved to where the snow actually is. Maybe some of the new money could go towards some of these ?

Another development i dream of is a bridge over the road at GS with a rop tow or something across it so you dont have to trudge back and forth... PErhaps not the most pressing issue but perhaps one day

With regard to getting to Corrie Fionn after the access runs have broken, this may only be attractive to a small number of skiers and then perhaps only for two or three extra weekends (?) so a solution would have to be affordable in relation to the potential additional ticket income.

If a chairlift is built from say Tom Dearg to Meal Odhar (that is also downloadable) then access would be via Sunnyside followed be a walk down the Cluny and back up again at the end of the day.

If that is not attractive, and some here don’t like walking and skiing on the same day then another option might be to run a minibus from the ticket office directly to Tom Dearg via the existing Sunnyside/Meal Odhar landrover track. The track would need to be upgraded, extended and perhaps ploughed, but that would be a lot less expensive than a new chair up Corrie Fionn.



Edited 2 times. Last edit at 13.49hrs Thu 19 Feb 15 by PeterS.

For GS, my dream change has always been a branch off home run cutting across the Meal Odhar face taking you back to Caenlochan poma. Our family call this the car-park circulation which we often repeatedly do using Tom Dearg lift and the cut across to Beag via Cluny. Car Park [local parlance] or Home Run is one of the longest cruisers at Glenshee when the entire top ridge is available and often offers really great skiing. I made the kids suffer the "strength through adversity" treatment of the grind back to Caenlochan numerous times when they were young and they now return the favour.... as I pant up the hill to the tow!

Clearly, a run across the face would involve crossing other runs/towlines and might require the intervention of Slartibartfast in relation to topography, but we are talking dreams here!

Best to all - BraemarBob

BraemarBob, I quite like the idea of a chairlift in the middle valley running from base of Tom Dearg to the small rise just behind the Dundee Ski club hut, would provide ski off access to all the middle valley lifts including the Caenlochan, and be a great long green for learners advancing from the nursery areas. Some landscaping below Cluny Pomas and snow making would seal the deal!

Two rational but desirable lifts I would like to see is either a second Tom Dearg poma or a diversion on the bottom leg of the home run to take people across to Cluny. Tom Dearg is a brilliant run to learn/teach on and is so snow sure but unfortunately is always a huge bottleneck.

The other is a development in the beginners area. Either by trying to expand it or stick up another tow elsewhere such as the lower slopes of Sunnyside.
The current dink dink can be easily overwhelmed especially when coach loads of beginners are up.

My biggest sought after lift appears to be in the pipeline; a chairlift following more or less the same line as the MO poma would make the world of difference during seasons like these.

(hopefully) 3 new chairlifts within 5 years though! how good is that!

You may well get your wish - though it's a different and actually better line that's being looked at. Should still start in the area of the Meall Odhar Poma loading area though :-)

I've always wondered if there was potential at The Lecht to expand away from the road, either into the valley containing Camore Burn or the north faces of Beinn a Chruinnich and Carn Ealasaid. Something that gets you out of sight of the car park would radically improve the perception of the area. You could potentially add a lot of terrain with just one or two new lifts.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 19.14hrs Sun 22 Feb 15 by tim1mw.

the lift man at Meall Odhar told me Glenshee will definitely be building 2 chairs this summer. Replacement of single chair on Cairnwell and something to access Coire Fionn, not sure exactly where though. Presumably if it's happening this summer there's already been a planning application with maps etc. Anyone know where it might be ?

This is the only new one I can find for GLenshee.

[upa.aberdeenshire.gov.uk]

Where are they sourcing the chair from?

Mike in Edinburgh
Assorted scottish pics - www.prog99.com

I don't think the Meal Odhar chairlift has been submitted yet. The Cairnwell one, mentioned above, is all signed off now so will be built this summer. The chair itself is coming from somewhere in Europe. As for the MO chair I heard a rumour it will be brand new.

The proposed Cairnwell replacement chair itself hasn't been sourced yet. All that's happened is the planning permission has been signed off. Word up the Glen was that they are searching around Europe to buy one and work on the founds 'may' start this summer. It's unlikely to be in place until 2016/17 at the earliest.

After reading the planning application it appears to be a 3 man fixed grip chair on the line of the old single. What I got excited about was in page 7 of the technical data where it says that this type of chair is designed as a fixed grip but can be easily changed to detachable at a later date ! Imagine .... A detachable chair on the Tiger !!!

Re Braemarbob's comments on Meal Odhar runs. You can already ski over from the top of Meall Odhar & Coire Fionn Pomas down to Caenlochan, snow permitting, but it's a slightly awkward unmarked, unfenced and rarely pisted traverse. There's a similar cut off half way down the Home Run that comes out at the bottom of Meal Odhar & Cluny Pomas. A bit of snow fencing and regular pisting could transform these 2 "routes" into proper pistes. Glenshee seem to be expert at grooming so I think they could tackle those 2 pretty easily, given enough snow.

Re The Lecht, I agree with Tim1mw, building something extending west down behind the Snowy Owl chair would be my choice. I'd go for a chair down to the bottom of the valley behind the existing ski area and a lift up the snowy gulley you can see on the next hill. A lift back up from the Tomintoul side of the road further down than Harrier would also be good. I had some great runs from Buzzard away off to the north and then down to the road where it bendsl left at wells of something a few years back. You just needed a pal to pick you up ... And tons of snow !