Plans for Shortening Village Double and Its Implications

[HowieT2]

If you follow the link to the town of Warren website provided earlier in the thread and look at the SE Group lighting plan, map LA 002 you will see that the realigned village chair ends on the west side of Easy Rider near the start of Sugarbear Road.

got it thanks.

[mattlucas]

I knew all those online classes in Ski Area Architecture would come in handy one day. Spelling errors and all, the map below is what you would get if you regraded and excavated the portion lookers right on the top of Easy Rider and moved the unloading to the right side. This would create a roughly ten foot retaining wall at the bottom of the trees above the lift shack, not a big loss for accomplishing so many things with one move.

The ramp and shack would have to be moved over a bit to the left, but there appears to be room to do this by inverting the current layout and aligning it with Lower Pushover.

Excavation of dirt and rock could immediately be re-used to regrade, flatten, and properly take advantage of the weedy and totally derelict gully.

The resulting slope would also be flat as a pancake. Beginners would step off, and come around into a beautiful slope and begin making their descent onto a wider slope.

Other benefits include:

Fewer entanglements with skier traffic on lower pushover.

Possibility to include some picnic tables on a nice sunny spot to give beginners the feeling of accomplishment of looking down into a valley from a scenic vista for the first time. IT's actually a sunny spot and I think people would take advantage, even just to snap a photo of their kids or to adjust their boots in style.

Access to the Bravo and Out to Lunch is maintained.

Traffic with Out to Lunch is barely an issue because even if trail use was greatly increased those skiers are primarily better skiers and wouldn't be as disruptive because the new slope would require more skating across delicately.

Final thoughts:

With a new re-graded slope covered edge to edge in snow, beginner skiers would have a great trail to learn on with a better length, virtually the same pitch as below, enhanced width for longer turns.... altogether a more finished area comparable to the competition at Okemo, Killington, Stowe.

I'm changing my tune in regards to a triple. Every lift has it's drawbacks. I like the idea of a well spaced detachable but understand that it is expensive to both purchase and run. A shiny new triple would look great compared to the rusty old double, and with the whole trail being accessed, a lift like that would have fewer towers to interfere with traffic than a double even if the base was moved closer to the other buildings and it ran on an angle.

My Picasso:

[Brew Ski]

Why is one of the triple passengers "missing" a head? Was there an accident on the lift?

Nice concept. Good use of space. You could be a landscaper.

I think the "cliffy retaining wall" kill the budget though...

[Hawk]

Matt that is cool and all but I think that they are going to move the lift over closer to the Gate House to accomodate the new builings. This would put the top terminal on th eother side of the trail from where it is now. I guess they could make the lift cross the trail but that would put towers in the middle of the trail. You need to redesign for the other side.

[sglatham]

Yikes, now I see the point on the VD! I was going off of memory from the ORIGINAL master plan when they built Claybrook etc. In those plans the new, repositioned VD went up Easy Rider, across the trail (lookiing up, starts to lower right, ends upper left), wiith a terminus just below Sugarbear Road and the dreaded Easy Rider head wall. Why they would want VD to be as short as on the recent plans, and miss utilizing 50% of Easy Rider, and all of Sugarbear RD and Sugarbear Forest, is beyond me. This would radicallly limit the true beginner/learning terrain, especially compared to other resorts. Doesn't make sense (and miost of what Win does actually makes sense to me). To those who have a true "standing" in the is process (ie homeowners) please let your voice be heard at the Warrent meetings!!

[mattlucas]

So the meetings are on the 16th and the 30th?

Will Summit Ventures be the only group presenting to the town board? How are residents and non-residents heard? It looks like the architectural plans have been Public for a little while, are they approved or does the whole process begin again if they make changes?

The buildings do look cool. I'd like to see development, jobs, a more active night life. I'm just not sure why some of these changes have to come at the expense of second home owners that have been involved with Sugarbush for many years.

Here are the proposed plans if anyone has not looked at them:

[Tin Woodsman]

Bump.

Not to distract everyone from Ullr's pending bounty, but I've split out this topic from the LP Development thread and then merged it with the mattlucas Picasso/Beautifu Mind drawing of village doulbe/Easy rider thread

Hopefully this will enable a more focused conversation on two very different aspects of the LP Development plans - the bldgs themselves vs. the associated on-mountain impact. The split asn't perfect b/c some posts delve into both topics, but this should work reasonably well going forward.

To get a view of what people are concerned about, look at the second rendering posted by mattlucas above. Just to the left of the dotted blue line, you can see parallel lift lines for the magic carpet (bottom) and the replcement VD (top). If it's hard to tel them apart, that should be a red flag for you right there. Look how short they intend to make the VD lift and then think about the cnsequences of those plans, not just for SB village residents, but for utilization of Easy Rider. Disturbing to say the least, IMHO.

I, for one, would urge all concerned parties in the area to make their voice heard on this issue at the upcoming review hearings in Warren.

[mattlucas]

So does the national forest land extend down to the top of VD?

I would rather see the mountain do a study than move the chair down in a knee jerk reaction ruining the slope for beginners, residents, renters, and parents that might want to shuffle over to the double to check on their kids and head back to bravo. Or skip a gate house line to go get a sandwich, pizza, beer, or french onion soup in the village.