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Looks like the Glenshee quad will have to wait..

Also at the Lecht there is so new fencing on the eagle being installed.

Haven't been to the other centers recently so have no information on that

Great news for the Caenlochan. It was noticeable this season that most of its pylons and arms have already been refurbished with just the base station left to do.

Its still a lot of work but a fraction of the cost of scrapping and replacing the whole lift. Also this way the project can be phased over several years and most of the spending and the skills are retained in the local economy.

Presumably they'll grit blast and repaint the base station or perhaps send it away to be galvanised and give it an indefinite life span ?

Not entirely sure why refurbishing the Caenlochan precludes installing the quad.

^^
They haven't mentioned a word about the new quad for a long time. It's eerily quiet on that front, while you'd expect them to make a big promotional deal with this big improvement. It could be a real game changer for glenshee.

Glenshee haven't actually bought the chair.

They don't do promotion. Whether or not they should, they fundamentally go into hibernation in the summer. Remember when the Tiger chair went in, pylons were being swapped, haul ropes replaced and there wasn't this hysteria.

The chair is not on site, afaik, and I guess that makes it harder to get contractors lined up. They also have to plan other stuff around the chair. Fencing and servicing still have to take priority.

I'm dead chuffed about the chair, but not sure it's a game changer. Tiger chair had kinda controlled the queues on Cairnwell side. It will give more laps of Cairnwell so it's a positive move, but it wouldn't be catastrophic if it's late. Whereas when the Tiger was awaiting completion/sign off it was a disaster because capacity was well down. A chair and a Tbar had been removed.

At this stage, there is no reason to think the chair won't go in. Hopefully it's ready for day one, but the risk of losing Caenlochan was too big to ignore. If only they had a Tbar running up Meall Other...

Bottom line, I don't always approve of the way Glenshee do their business but it pretty much works.

Last year was the first busy season since the Tiger chair went in. Glenshee will have had the opportunity to assess the level of customer demand against their new uplift capacity. It may be that they have decided that they do not need any further capacity at this stage and that there are better things to spend their money on ? The Cairnwell Tbar still seems to be reliable ?

The planning permission or the new chair requires commencement within 3 years ie. before 8th October 2020. Whilst there are some reasonably onerous (perhaps expensive) pre commencement conditions, once a valid start has been made there is then no expiry date.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 12.07hrs Thu 5 Jul 18 by PeterS.

It's not just about capacity, it's about customer expectations. Said it before and will continue to say it, in 2018 surface lifts basically don't cut the mustard with the general skiing population. They now expect chairs. When I started skiing in the 1980's the mix of lifts in Scotland was broadly similar to the continent. Slightly more surface lifts but not massively different. Now it is like chalk and cheese, with a far greater percentage of surface lifts in Scotland compared to the continent. Plenty of potential customers vote with their feet, and if the Scottish resorts don't upgrade then they will slowly die.

Anyway a chair to replace the Cairnwell Tbar really opens up the area to beginners in my view. There are lots of early skiers venturing out the nursery areas for with the Cairnwell Tbar is a step too far. Replace that with a chair and you have access to the Bunny Run. That is a huge win for Glenshee in my view.

Further a chair does not require uptrack maintenance either, whether it is for fencing repairs in the summer or pisting in the winter and of course does not require snow to operate. I guess a Cairnwell chair could really open up the downhill mountain biking options too.

Glenshee already has three chairlifts including the new Tiger chair. By now they should have a good idea about customer demand for them. Adding a fourth chair in the hope that it might attract new customers or persuade existing customers not to go elsewhere, might seem an unnecessary financial risk at the moment ?

I would have thought that the new piste bashers will have made tow track preparation a bit quicker and easier ?

It’s a pity that it doesn’t seem possible to create a new beginner run from the top of the Tiger chair.

One of the issues is the final pitch on the TBar is often wind scoured and there are small sharp rocks that are hard to patch. The chair is a very good move for lots of reasons but that's a biggie. Not an easy place to move snow into.

In terms of the Tiger, I don't want to see an easy run off it. Too many people in trouble as it is, because they ignore signs or over estimate their level of ability. The only downside of the new chair is that there are many more idiots creating obstacles! In the good old days, those types fell off the TBar so weren't an issue....

I too would like to see an easy run off the top of the Cairnwell (Tiger) chair. A small rope top from the col to top of existing Cairnwell T-bar has been mentioned on here before and would be a great and cheap improvement. Then the (under-utilised I think) triple chair can soak up some more punters and releive some of the pressure on the other Cairnwell side lifts. Just have clear signage on the run gradings and if people ignore them, or overestimate their abilities, that's their look-out. People ignoring signs or overestimnating their own abilities happens in every place of every resort.

Operator error, posted twice!



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 11.18hrs Fri 6 Jul 18 by oversteer.

Short of breaking out the dynamite and blasting an easy run into the mountainside it's just not physically possible. I think the chances of getting planning permission for that are basically zero.

Oh I don't know, perhaps you want to check out the thread on skier numbers for this season where for the first time EVER Glenshee had more customers than Cairngorm. Looks like improving your uplift is a successful strategy to me, but then I don't think that's rocket science. Glencoe who have also improved their uplift have also seen improvements in market share too

Or you could argue that most of us are so hacked off with Cairngorm management's bad behaviour that we will not go there on principal and this is evidence of that shift.?