All language subtitles for The.Mountain.2015.S01E04.1080p.iP.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-HiNGS_track3_[eng]

This is the Cairngorm National
Park, Scotland's greatest

winter wilderness.

Where snow is a way of life.

Yeah, snow's amazing. We love snow.

Through the depths of winter, we'll
be following the lives

of the people who depend on
Cairn Gorm for their very survival.

Can't see where we're going, but
we'll just go anyway.

We'll witness their battles to keep
the mountain open, whatever the
weather.

Every day's different,
so, some days we'll come here,

you could use a leaf blower to get
rid of it and then

the next time you come back,
it's like digging concrete.

Hi, guys!

We'll get to know the struggles of
the businesses of Aviemore, serving

thousands of tourists attracted by
the snow and the stunning landscape.

If there's snow up there,
and it's good snow,

I mean, there's thousands
and thousands of people can turn up.

And we'll meet the remarkable people
who inhabit this very special world.

Everybody is always happy. May all
your children be as cute as the
piper.

LAUGHTER

You've just got to try and be as
happy as you can.

Welcome to winter on The Mountain.

Cairn Gorm is in the midst of one
of its stormiest winters in decades.

It's January. It's never
nice in January, or February.

If it is, it's a lucky day.

The mountain team have been battling
against the elements to make

the most of the good days.

It's borderline with the tows again,

so the guys are having to recheck
stuff and then de-ice the top tows.

It's busy.

It's February. Half-term holidays
are just a week away,

but snowstorms are playing havoc
with mountain infrastructure.

Do you want us to get the return
wheel or not? Yeah.

Ski tows are getting buried. 'We're
not going to get this open today,'

just the amount of snow we need to
shift, but we'll get there, slowly.

Buildings are disappearing,
and the funicular railway, vital to

transporting skiers up the mountain,
is under constant threat.

Today, I'm digging this out,

and it'll just be filled up again
tomorrow.

The man responsible for moving
the thousands of tonnes of snow

that's crippling the ski area is
Adam McInnes...

The ski patrol entrance,
up to the eaves.

A lot of snow in there, uh?

HE LAUGHS

Top's already buried, so

there's no point in wasting machine
time

and man-hour time digging it out

if it's just going to fill in again
tomorrow, you know.

Aye, we'll do what we can.

But...you know
there's a storm coming.

The snow that Adam is delicately
traversing in his piste

machine is 8m deep,
changing the landscape completely.

No, it's incredible. You see it most
years,

just how much snow a storm can bring
in, you know.

You've got ropes above you
and fences below you...

and big drops, you know.

The half-term holidays are a key
moment for the ski resort.

A successful week will mean
the difference between a great

season and a poor one.

Head of operations, Colin Matthew,
has got to make sure the train

and lifts are ready for the rush.

Masses of snow after that storm.

Huge drifts round the top station,
the tunnel mouth.

So the whole team's just,
sort of, digging out.

The sheer volume of snow, it's just
amazing, from mid-mountain up.

And if we just, er,
keep consolidating

the snow we've got for half-term,
it's looking pretty promising.

Pretty upbeat.

If we get a good half-term...

it can make and break the whole
season, really.

Yes, we've got snow at this level.

Just a pity the wind wouldn't
go down and then

we could get a bit of skiing done.

The ski patrol team is
heading to the top of the ski

runs to see what's needing
done to get them

in good shape before the skiers
and snowboarders arrive.

First light, so we're just
having a wee look about.

Lot of snow over the last
couple of days.

Machines are just piste-ing out
the lower slopes.

And it isn't long before Iain has
an unusually snowy problem to

contend with.

Someone's broke the lock on it.
They've actually wrecked it? Yeah.

There's a small office for the
patrollers halfway up the hill,

and someone's broken in to it.

It's hard enough trying to get going
when there's been

a storm, let alone trying to dig out
some of the buildings and stuff.

They expect to be shifting
snow off the slopes -

they hadn't bargained on doing
it for desks and telephones.

Most people have to dig snow
out of their office first

thing in the morning, then...

HE LAUGHS

Need to get back in. Yeah.

Ten miles below the mountain,

the village of Aviemore is
basking in very different weather.

The businesses in the village
rely on the snow to

attract their customers,

and they are all gearing
up for a very busy half-term.

Three years ago, Londoners Simon

and Tanja Hughes moved to Aviemore
to manage Pine Bank Holiday Chalets.

'How often in life are you going to
be presented with

'an opportunity like this?'

We love it here, and really settled,
and...

it is just a good place to live, you
know.

The chalet park is owned by Simon's
father,

and the couple are working hard
to modernise it.

This is one of our oldest chalets.

There's been a lot done to it over
the years, new windows and new

roof and things, but in order to get
it to the standard that we think

it should be, we have to spend quite
a significant amount of money on it.

We're trying to move forward all the
time, I suppose,

and, sort of, meet
and exceed expectations,

and the expectations are always
changing.

Money's tight for the young couple.

Shortly after taking on the chalets,
they bought over local bar

Super Panther, to try to bring in
more cash,

and then baby Maisie arrived.

Off up to Super Panther to have a
chat over a few things

and talk about a party that they're
planning in a couple of weeks.

There we go, all wrapped up.

I guess I'm quite lucky, in many
ways, that Maisie can

come along to my business meetings.

To begin with it was very hard
because I wasn't able to help Simon

at all, and he was basically running
the two businesses on his own.

I mean, that's one of the reasons
I'm up, erm, sorting out

the bar for Simon, because he's
obviously focused on the chalets.

Oh, I'm out of breath, I'm unfit!

Hello!

Simon and Tanja want their bar
manager Jeremy to come up

with some new party ideas to attract
the half-term custom.

Can you give me a hand?

But it's soon clear that there's a
difference of opinion on the
available budget.

I really want to get some decent
posters.

OK, last posters. We're not paying
to get them printed.

You're not?

It's not going to generate any money,
Jez. What's the point?

It won't. It's just throwing
money at something and it's not...

You know, we'll spend money
on things that will generate money.

Printing posters, or printing
themselves is not going to generate
any more money.

But everything that we do...

looks cheap.

Because it's done in-house.

Cos we've got no money.
I mean, Jez, seriously,

asking Simon to pay 50 quid already
is like pulling his teeth out.

It's coming out of his pocket.

It's just not going to happen.

BABY CRIES

Oh, what is it? You can't just
throw it on the floor.

Jeremy goes back to the drawing
board.

All right.

CairnGorm Mountain is a unique ski
resort in Britain,

and that's partly down to
its funicular railway.

Opened in December 2001,

the funicular can carry up
to 120 skiers, from the base station

to the Ptarmigan visitor centre
at the top, in just five minutes.

But its controversial

and much debated design can create
havoc during the winter months.

Managed to buy the only funicular in
the world that is snookered by snow,

but, hey, you know, keeps us fit.

With the track acting as a huge snow
fence, the team are often left

to clear this 21st century
masterpiece from tonnes

of snow in a much more
Victorian way.

It's for poor lifties only.

At the tunnel mouth, chief digger,
Whopper, is in charge of the digging
team.

Been here since seven. Done
the bottom of the track first thing.

Been here since eight.

What's the time just now?

After ten?

This is the 25th time this
season that the team have had

to clear the tunnel-mouth and track.

Maybe lunchtime before
we get going.

Five hours on the track.

HE LAUGHS

At Pine Bank, Tanja reports back to
Simon on the outcome of her

discussion with bar manager
Jeremy at Super Panther.

How did it go with Jez?

Yeah, fine. Yeah? I think

he's a bit annoyed that we don't
want...

Well, I said we didn't want to pay to
get the posters professionally
printed.

Where are they going to go, you
know?

Well, that's what I said.

You know, it's not going to generate
any extra, you know, people,

income or...

So, I think his ideas are good. Yeah.

And he's e-mailed over posters
and things.

We need to do that this weekend.

Cool. OK.

All right. I'm going to go and see
if the stove's in.

Ooh. Want to come?

I wouldn't mind seeing it, actually.
Can you just hold Maisie,
while I get...?

As part of their updating
of the chalets,

Simon's been getting wood-burning
stoves installed.

Whoa! Yeah, it's good.

No smoke's coming in the room.
No. Looks good in here.

Does, doesn't it? Yeah.

Yay. Good. Stove number two.

The business is...it's slowly
improving, isn't it? Year on year.

Yeah, yeah, year on year.

Our three years here,
we've increased turnover every year.

Yeah. There's still room to
improve our occupancy, which is why,

you know, one of the reasons we're
doing some work, just to,

sort of, make them more appealing.

But it's going well. Can't complain.

Yeah.

High on the mountain,
beyond the ski slopes,

the heavy snow that attracts
the visitors holds its own dangers.

A walker is reported to have
fallen through a cornice.

Iain Cornfoot leads the ski
patrol on a rescue mission.

He's fallen and possibly
broken his ankle, we've heard.

But the area that he's in is very
avalanche prone.

We've had a lot of heavy snow
this morning on a...

quite a strong westerly wind,
which is filling in that area.

So...the problem for us
just now is how we protect

against an avalanche, if
we're putting people on there to
rescue them.

And at this point, we have to make
a decision if we're even

going to put people in there.

Yeah, he's fully 30m up.

He's not far up, he's pretty far on
the slope.

Just going to take a ski sledge.

Weather's pretty horrible,
poor visibility,

but we'll try to get the guy to walk
off if he can, onto safer ground.

Make it a bit safer for us.

A planned evacuation
on this guy,

to see whether we need to connect
everyone up the hill or...

With the high risk of avalanche,
Iain makes the call to hold

back at a safe distance whilst the
climber's friend lowers him down.

One of us under each shoulder maybe?

Yeah. Just walk him down.

All the pre-season training that the
ski patrollers have undergone

is paying dividends.

Jim, do you want to put the bag down,
and we'll just put Jim

straight into it
and then put a splint on from there?

Yeah, thank you!

Well done. Thank you. Yeah, we just

splinted the gentleman's leg.

We're going to get him strapped into
the stretcher and head down to the
base.

Just pretty much the standard, sort
of, ski injury, and we'll have a look
down there.

Might take this up to here, first of
all, John.

How does that feel? Not too tight
anywhere? No, it's all right.

All right, Iain?

Yeah, just leaving the site just now.

Probably just myself and Jim,
head down with the gentleman. Over.

Thanks, guys! Cheers.

The guy was pretty cold
so we just did a quick scoop and run.

He's twisted his ankle on the way
down, probably broken his lower leg.

And then as he's managed to
arrest his fall,

he's still on an area which is
high avalanche risk.

And if we had have put additional
people in there, additional loading
on that slope,

then it could have triggered
the avalanche.

The police had already called
an ambulance

so they were waiting. Quick handover
and he's on the way to hospital.

I guess people have to take a certain
responsibility for themselves,

and that was good.

His friends and a couple other people
who went to help, to get him down
to a safe location.

The Super Panther team has finally
decided that what Aviemore

most needs in the depths of winter
is...a beach party!

We're basically going to fill
the inside of the bar with sand

and make it into a fake beach.

Jeremy has ordered
up two tonnes of builders'

sand to convert the bar
into something a bit special.

I'm going to move...table,
what would be table two, move these

across a bit further and just come
out to this...length here, and
then...

Jeremy's in charge. I've got work to
do at the chalet, so it's busy.

Busy departure day, Sunday.

Yeah, lots of chalets leaving,

quite a few coming back in.

So, yeah, need to head back there.

CLAPPING

Crack on. Has he turned up just in
time? Yeah.

It's hard enough just to run one
business, you know, but to have to

run his father's business and to own
his own business, I couldn't do it.

To be fair.

And I think, you know, that's why
Simon does struggle with it all,

and at times he's probably
found that he can't give everything

100%. There's only one of him

and he can only be in one place
at one time, so,

yeah, it's hard.

Jez, I'll get some photos
and stick them on Facebook, yeah?

Super Panther is now transformed
and ready for the big beach party.

It looks good, yeah?

Aviemore's hottest
night of the winter!

It looks brilliant.

It's a shame we couldn't have filled
the whole thing,

but I think Simon
didn't like the idea. I think two

tonnes of sand was probably enough
for him to shovel this morning!

It's harder work than our
nine-to-five jobs that we did before,

and you worry a lot more cos you
have more invested, obviously.

But then, I wouldn't change it, you
know.

It's really nice to be doing this.

And also, to be able to do
something, you know,

while I have a baby.

Just...

It does keep me, you know... Just
a couple of hours a day,

it's just nice to do something
that's, you know,

maybe not baby-related, you know.

As the party gets under way,

the customers are not the only ones
feeling the joys of summer.

Yeah, very good. Yeah, we got busy,
so, can't ask for more.

So, yeah. Not a full bar,
but a busy bar.

So, all is good.

And Aviemore knows how to party,
whatever the weather.

Along the road at the Ski-ing Doo,
another party is well under

way, as resident barman and keen
snowboarder, Brett Drummond,

keeps the CairnGorm ski hire
team well watered.

These reprobates! These
are our finest customers. Ski hire!

HE LAUGHS

The CairnGorm crew. Looking good,
Sarah!

It's one of the boys' leaving nights

so they're having a good
send-off for him by the looks of it.

Aviemore born and bred, Brett's been
boarding up here all his life.

I'd happily live up
here for the rest of my life,

and that's being a local, you know.

I love travelling but this'll always
be my home. For sure.

Last season Brett broke
both of his ankles,

a consequence of pushing himself too
far on one of Cairn Gorm's ski
jumps.

How's your day been?

Er, pretty chilled out. Trying to
get my ankle back to normal.

It's been abnormally sore, but I'm
going to the hospital... What have
you done?

I don't know. When I sneeze, you know
you get that feeling through your
body?

It turns into pain in my ankle.
It's the strangest thing.

It has a different effect for me!

THEY LAUGH

Like an itch you can't scratch,
Brett will have to wait it out.

Have you seen this?
That's from this morning.

Oh, wow!

The direct feed from the mountain
webcams are a constant

reminder of what he's missing.

Just a shame I can't use it!

Finally, the sun is shining

and the half-term customers are
beginning to arrive on Cairn Gorm.

But only half the mountain
can open today.

The funicular railway is
buried yet again.

It's a continuing headache for
head of operations, Colin Matthew.

I wish it would just all
settle down for half-term.

Big weekend coming up.
That's a big weekend.

Monday, potentially our busiest
day of the year.

So, who knows?

The mountain teams are well used to
clearing the tracks,

but nothing on a scale like this.

Dig the train out, fills in again.

Dig the train out, fills in again!

Enough is enough.
Colin comes up with a cunning plan.

It's Dig Like A Dog Day.

Volunteers are being summoned
up from Aviemore and the

surrounding villages, to help save
the mountain's weekend.

50 of them.

OK, guys. My name's Jim.

Thanks very much for volunteering
to help us out.

A chap called Whopper,
who's in charge of our lifty crew.

If you've got any problems, come
and see myself and Whopper

and we'll try and sort it out.

You want some help with digging?
Yeah, if you want to help?

The half-term
customers are already arriving,

the queues are lengthening, so with
only the lower ski slopes open,

the volunteers need to dig hard,
and get this train running, fast.

Obviously, it's half-term
and the whole valley relies on this

place being open
and getting people here.

Guest houses, pubs,
shops, the whole lot.

It affects everybody, you know.

This is probably the... Coming
into the busiest week of the year.

So, if we can get this open tomorrow,
it'll be a big bonus.

Good progress. See that there,
right?

That's pretty much bang on perfect.

Might even be done in half
an hour for here.

That's great.

This is the easy bit, though.

Out of the wind, not blowing back in
when you're shovelling it out.

So, yeah, it'll be a lot more
challenging further up.

To help with the challenge of
clearing the drifts from the track,

one of Cairn Gorm's longest-serving
characters gets called into action.

The line here, like, never ever seen
it that deep in here, like.

Nothing like it.

There's 40 feet of snow down there,
over that bank. Easily, like.

I haven't seen that before.

For over 40 years, Tom Moody has
worked on Cairn Gorm's slopes.

He's seen plenty of changes
over his time on the hill,

including the construction
of the railway.

We'd poor winters after it was built
and it was 2010

when they got a real bad one.

And this was like this then,
like, you know?

But I don't think it was... It wasn't
even as bad as this, though.

You know, we'd a bit of snow,

but no' of the depth and length
of snow that there is in here, like.

Definitely a lot more this time.

Saving the volunteers valuable time
and effort,

Tom coolly scrapes away tonnes
of snow from the side of the track.

Aye, it's handy having that concrete
line there, just to keep you right.

You can just
skiff down the side of it here

and it just
peels off as nice as you like.

That'll do it.

That's me finished this bit here.
It's time for lunch.

The pressure of running
both their businesses

and a family has been
building on Simon and Tanja.

In the cold light of day,

they've made a big decision
about their bar, Super Panther.

Super Panther,
we've put on the market...

..just cos it's...
It was a difficult decision.

Not what we wanted to do, but...
No, it's...

When we took it on, Maisie
was not even a collection of cells.

We didn't have Maisie.
Oh! A ghost!

Now, you know, we want to have
days where we take Maisie out

and enjoy her.

And, I mean, Simon's been working,
well, every day

and often in the evening, as well.

Yeah, in the summer, I'd do days
here and night shifts up there.

And it's... It's no life, you know.

I mean, that's one of the reasons
we, sort of,

left the London rat race, to kind of
get a bit of quality of life back.

So it's farewell, Super Panther,

and time to concentrate on making a
big success of the chalet business.

The big dig is making good progress,
and in the funicular control room,

train driver, Jules Roberts, is
finally preparing for a trial run.

This is our monitor which shows us
what's going on

at the tunnel mouth.

The wind is the only thing that
really stops the train,

other than huge amounts of snow,
which we have at the moment.

Ah, she lives!

The tunnel door is open.
The train is ready to roll.

Tunnel's pretty much done, then it's
just this last section here.

And I think, hopefully,
we can move the train.

Yeah, I'm clear.
Fire that bad boy up.

Oh! OK.

The wheels are turning, over.

After being dumped with more snow
than a railway can handle,

the funicular is, finally,
operational.

It's looking very good.

I think we should be a go, and we'll
make some very happy campers.

The hard work of all
the volunteers has saved the day.

The resort is now fully
open for business.

Is that us? Yes.

Aye. Do me.

The tracks are clear, the train is
full, the wheels are turning.

It looks pretty snowy.

Yeah, it looks good.

And with snowboard at the ready,
ankles repaired,

Brett is finally going
boarding again.

I'm so nervous now.

Good God!

It actually feels really good.

It's all feeling really good.
All right.

After a hugely frustrating winter,
Cairn Gorm is finally delivering.

3,200 people on site today, which is
a massive achievement.

The queues weren't that bad,
once people got spread out.

It was quite a really
successful day.

Always wanting to raise the bar,
Colin has arranged

for floodlit skiing, extending the
half-term holidays into the night.

And he's roped in fitter, P-Man, to
help with the floodlights.

That's the worst thing about
carrying a radio.

There's always a job at the end of
it!

Just waiting on them warming up.

The sooner they warm up, the
sooner I get tea.

There's one, there's two,
there's three...

A-hem!

There's three. There you go.

Tea-time.

P-Man can get his brew and for
Colin,

the incredible hard work from
the team and all the volunteers

has been worth the effort.

I never thought there'd be
so many people at night.

It was just amazing,
the amount of people who stayed on.

It was a bit gobsmacking how many
people...

So yeah, perfect day.

Half-term, one of our busiest days
for many years, so it's real good.

It was incredible, yeah.

A lot better than I was expecting,
which was really good, yeah.

I did two runs, so I'm going to claim
that and then go

and have a beer, I think.

High-five everyone.
Give them lots of cuddles!

Next time on The Mountain, a hard
season starts to take its toll...

There's a real, real loud

labouring sound coming from the
motor.

Spud The Piper attempts to
ski on the white stuff...

And it's competition
season on Cairn Gorm.

Oh, yeah. That was some money,
yeah, money for that!