First look at plans for £22 million gondola that could revolutionise skiing at Glencoe

An artist's impression of how the Glencoe's new gondola would look | Glencoe Mountain / ski-scotland

Glencoe Mountain ski area has unveiled an ambitious £26 million masterplan that could see it make significant improvements to both its lift system and its snowmaking capabilities.​

Under the proposals, a new high-speed gondola would replace the existing Access Chairlift, carrying skiers and snowboarders from the car park beside the base station to the Plateau area of the resort in just five minutes instead of 15.

With its ten-seater cabins the gondola would also provide much greater uplift capacity, transporting up to 3,000 people per hour instead of 600, and its top station would incorporate a new restaurant with spectacular views of Rannoch Moor.

Artist's impression of how the new gondola top station might look at Glencoe Mountain Resort | Glencoe Mountain / ski-scotland

“It’ll be like night and day for our customers,” says Andy Meldrum, Glencoe’s managing director. “As well as being a much faster way of getting up the mountain, the new gondola will also take you ​about 100m higher up, so like in the Alps, instead of going up once and then having to get another lift to go up further before you can start skiing, this will take you above the lower lifts – one minute you’ll be in the car park and then five minutes later you'll have your skis on.”

The masterplan also includes provision for improved snowmaking, with a reservoir on the Plateau supplying water for snow canons when the temperature falls below freezing and also generating green energy for the gondola system via a turbine for the rest of the year.

“We’ve known for a long time that what Scottish skiing really needs is the same as all the Eastern European countries,” says Meldrum, “a proper set-up with a reservoir, a pumping station, fixed pipes and push button operation. With that, Scottish skiing would be able to do exactly what the rest of Europe’s doing and guarantee a start and finish date to the season.”

The proposed new snowmaking system at Glencoe would create a snow-sure piste at mid-mountain level of around 1.5km in length, as well as a smaller beginner's area. | Glencoe Mountain / Ski Scotland

​Having finalised the masterplan, Meldrum says he is ​n​ow seeking financial backing to make it a reality. “Preliminary discussions are underway with everyone from HIE and the Scottish Government to financial institutions and private investors,” he says. “At this preliminary stage we are happy to talk to everyone and anyone to share the vision we have for the future.”

In addition to the gondola, which is expected to cost £22 million, and the new snowmaking set-up and turbine, priced at £2.5 million, the masterplan also includes improvements to the access road (some of which are already underway) and the construction of new staff accommodation.

Overview of the base station at Glencoe, showing the proposed location for the new gondola hall | Glencoe Mountain / ski-scotland

“We’ve always been told by HIE and the Scottish Government that they don’t just want to see applications for standalone projects,” says Meldrum. “They asked us to put a masterplan together so that’s what we’ve done. A major problem we face at the moment is recruiting enough staff, because it’s becoming more and more difficult to find affordable accommodation in the Highlands, so the new staff accommodation links to a huge need we’ve got already. It wouldn’t be worth making the sort of investment we’re talking about for the gondola if we couldn't then find staff to man the thing.​”

Glencoe currently employs 32 staff, and it is predicted that 15 more roles would be created following completion of the masterplan.

Artist's impression of how Glencoe's new gondola might look | Glencoe Mountain / ski-scotland

Situated on the slopes of 1108m Meall a’ Bhuiridh, Glencoe is the oldest of Scotland's five ski centres, having first opened for business with a single tow in 1956. That first tow had a capacity of just 250 skiers per hour and ascended less than 300 metres. Skiers still had to hike a good distance from the car park to get to it, so the Access Chairlift was added in 1959.

Glencoe's founder Philip Rankin, ​an engineer who flew Spitfires during the Second World War, spent several years considering the best place to site a ski resort in Scotland. In an article in the Scottish Ski Club Journal in​ the winter of 195​2/3, he explained that he favoured Meall a’ Bhuiridh because “​it has an ample corrie deeply scored with ravines, which collect such a mass of snow as to be virtually impervious to even weeks of thaw.”

These north-facing “ravines” on the upper mountain still fill up with deep snow every winter, much of which blows in on the prevailing westerly winds, and they often remain white well into the spring and even ​into the summer – the lifts at Glencoe are sometimes run for a single day ​on 21 June to facilitate the famous “Midsummer Slide”​, which sees die-hard skiers visiting any remaining snow patches to eke out the last few turns of the season.

After Rankin retired in 1992, the resort ​e​ntered a period of decline, almost going out of business for good in 2009. However, it was saved from going into administration at the eleventh hour when it was bought by Meldrum.

Since then, ​G​lencoe has ​m​anaged to survive and even thrive through what has been a difficult period for the Scottish ski industry in general, adding lifts and pioneering freeride ski and snowboard competitions in its steeper, more challenging terrain.

"We’ve doubled our market share in the last 15 years,” says Meldrum. We’ve also grown our ski market. We’re the nearest ski centre to Glasgow, and we’ve shown that we’ve got​ the people in place to manage a project like this going forward.”

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For more on skiing at Glencoe Mountain, see www.glencoemountain.co.uk/winter