Five pounds to hire a sledge for half an hour, plus £18 return ticket for adult and child to reach the "sledge park" at the top of the funicular. Sadly typical of commercial skiing.

I've done a fair bit of cross-country skiing, mostly over remote areas like the Knockfin Heights, where the going is rough but with only fairly gentle uphills and downhills. My downhill technique is non-existent, consisting of a series of long gentle diagonal traverses across the slopes. I'm used to skiing alone, miles from anyone else, so a commercial ski centre comes as a bit of a shock. I'd met up with my son in Aviemore and, given the quantity of snow on the hills, we'd decided to hire cross-country skis for a couple of days. He's a competent downhill skier without much cross-country experience; I've never, ever tried downhill skis and could only cope with gentle slopes on the cross-country variety.

Before trying anything too adventurous we spent the first afternoon skiing up forest tracks and paths from Glenmore past Ryvoan. Given our recent mild winters, it's a couple of years since I last managed to get out on skis, and a route of about six miles was ample for both of us. There was far more snow than I've seen all winter, deep and soft off the trails, with walkers floundering.

The second day was to be the main adventure. The forecast was good, and we aimed to ride up on the funicular and ski across the plateau to Ben Macdhui, Scotland's second-highest peak. On a summer's day it would be an easy walk, but on unfamiliar skis across the high Cairngorms in winter conditions it was, for us, quite an expedition.

So we duly arrived at the foot of the funicular, queued for our tickets... and then were turned off the train. We were not allowed to take our skis up without buying a full day's ski pass, which would have set us back a cool £60. Gritting my teeth to remain polite I queued again for a refund of our £18 for the tickets, then we shouldered our skis and set off tramping up the hill through the snow. It's the first and last time I ever have anything to do with CairnGorm Mountain Ltd.

The routes taken by piste-bashers and snowmobiles gave relatively easy walking and it took us only about an hour to reach the height to which the railway would have taken us. But it was very hard work and valuable energy was lost, which meant that it was now unlikely we could safely reach Ben Macdhui. At least CairnGorm Mountain Ltd was £18 the poorer. As we neared 4000 feet I realised just how cold it was, needing to put on extra clothes even though pushing uphill through the snow as fast as I could carrying a pack and two pairs of skis and poles. Minus eight or so, with a 15 mph wind, but the tops clear under a hazy sky and a settled forecast for the day.

From the edge of the escarpment, the rolling white plateau stretched southwards, the hump of Ben Macdhui some three miles distant. Steep crags fringe the whole area, and the winter weather is usually truly ferocious, often with winds in excess of 100 mph and whiteout conditions. It is a place to be treated with great respect and you should not be there unless you are fit and well-equipped and know you can safely get off if the weather suddenly turns very nasty.

Crossing the plateau. The weather here is often ferocious, and it's a landscape that has to be treated with great respect.

With the skis on, we were soon making good progress across deep windslab snow which would have been a terrible slog on foot. Icy patches made for some excitement; the downhill slopes were enough to be challenging but not too steep to be impossible, and the uphills were gentle enough to ski. In the middle of that plateau in such conditions you know you are only there by permission of the elements which have relented for a day or so; you get a hint as to what it could be like by the intense cold when the wind briefly picks up and the surface starts to drift. One or two other walkers and skiers, also heading southwards, were just tiny dots on the huge white landscape.

The steep initial climb combined with the lack of cross-country practice had taken too much out of us and a mile short of Macdhui we made the decision to turn back, not wanting to risk having to struggle, exhausted, back across that plateau into possibly deteriorating weather. Instead we took our time, enjoying the experience of such a wild place, detouring for views down to Loch Avon and finally climbing back up to the top of Cairngorm – a climb which left both of us pretty shattered and very glad we hadn't pushed on further.

Here, you suddenly realise how the isolation of that plateau is nowadays something of an illusion. On the summit was an automatic weather station, so completely encased in ice and frost feathers that the instruments had all failed. Incongruously, just a little way below, was the top station of the funicular, a restaurant, and ski-tows radiating off in all directions. Two thousand feet below was a glittering sea of cars. The whine of the ski-tows drifted upwards. How to get down...

Initially walking, and then by a series of diagonal traverses, I reached the top of the ski-slopes. Train and tows were disgorging strings of skiers and snowboarders who set off at speed down the various runs. My companion, with his experience from downhill skis, could just about control the cross-country (where the boot is only fastened at the toe) enough to take the easiest run down, slowly, in a snowplough position. My zigzag technique is not quite suitable for pistes where skiers and boarders are hurtling down at high speed. I would have to walk... except where, on gentler off-piste slopes, I could just about manage. Then trouble. I found myself trapped: two runs joined below me and boarders and skiers were hurtling past at seemingly supersonic speed. To add to the problems there was a tow, hauling people up. Somehow I had to cross all this mess to reach open snow without being hit by someone travelling at 60 mph. Thinking of the peace and solitude of the Knockfin Heights and resolving never, ever again to venture anywhere near a ski resort, I put the skis on, waited till it looked a bit quieter and made a desperate dash across the first run and the line of the tow, just managing to avoid falling over in front of somebody coming up.

After that, a bit of wallowing in deep snow with a few holes where I went in to the top of my leg and soaked a foot in a hidden stream were just nothing. It was good to get down safely, and meet up with my son who'd been sitting waiting for me in the café with a very welcome cup of hot chocolate.

So the next day a bit of quiet skiing round forest trails was in order, with, as the weather cleared in the afternoon and the sun came out, a detour on foot up to the highest top of the Kincardine Hills just to the north of Glenmore. Quite a few folk had been up and had tramped a good route through the deep snow. The views from the summit were of the gleaming white mountains across Loch Morlich, the whole of Strathspey stretching from east to west, and ranks of snow-covered high hills beyond. Later, as I waited for the train north from Aviemore, those high Cairngorms formed a spectacular backdrop behind the railway station for people arriving for the following day's Scottish Lab-our Party conference. Let's propose a swingeing tax on commercial skiing in Scotland so that we can pay to remove all the paraphernalia from the mountains in a few years' time and restore them to the wild places they ought to be!

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