What’s going on with the chairlifts at CairnGorm Mountain ski centre?

On 21 August, photographs started popping up on social media that appeared to show the destruction of the chairlift towers and other infrastructure on the Coire na Ciste side of the CairnGorm Mountain ski area near Aviemore. The first few images were blurry, evidently taken from a distance with long lenses, so it was hard to tell exactly what was going on up there on the hill. But it didn’t take long for members of the Scottish skiing community to hike up to get a closer look. The flurry of pictures that followed showed what many had feared: the towers that once supported the West Wall Chairlift and Ciste Chairlift had been removed – felled like so many metal trees – and bright orange diggers were in the process of smashing up the concrete plinths on which they once stood. There were reports that snow fencing from the Aonach Bowl and other nearby ski runs was also being removed. On 23 August, a post on the popular Winter Highland Facebook page read: “Tonight the West Wall Chairlift, along with the ideas, hopes and dreams of the original generation of pioneers of Scottish snowsports, lies smashed up on the slopes of Coire na Ciste.”