50th Anniversary
CairnGorm Mountain’s famous White Lady chair made a brief re-appearance on 23rd December, when its very first passenger found herself seated on the chair again after a lapse of 50 years. Katriona McIntyre and her brother were the first two passengers on the first chair out on the mountain on 23rd December 1961. Katriona (now Crook) returned to the ski resort for the 50th anniversary.
The White Lady chairlift, the first mechanised uplift on the mountain was inaugurated 50 years ago to the day. The trip to the top on the chairlift took 40 chilly minutes back in the 60s, a journey which now takes only six minutes in the funicular railway which replaced the chairlift exactly 10 years ago and which by coincidence clocked up its 100,000th journey on 23rd December too.
The Super Seniors (season ticket holders aged 75 or older) who were guests at the event enjoyed a buffet with a contemporary twist on the traditional fare which bolstered skiing enthusiasts in the early years, including miniature Sheiling pies, fried (quails’) egg rolls and chips in newspaper pokes (the Christmas edition of the local paper, the Strathspey and Badenoch Herald of 1961). A double cake comprising two funicular coaches was cut by Chrissie Clyde whose late husband Bob Clyde was the first manager of the Cairngorm Chairlift Company and by intrepid pioneer of Scottish skiing, Myrtle Simpson. Guests also had the opportunity to sample ‘White Lady’ wheat beer specially bottled in a limited commemorative edition by Cairngorm Brewery. This is now on sale in our bars and shops. The super seniors recorded their memories and stories of the early days on video and on the local radio station Moray Firth Radio who were broadcasting live from the mountain.
