Northridge Express

[freeheel_skier]

The Northridge was down today. Anybody know if it will run tomorrow? I didn't think to ask when leaving the mtn today.

[summitchallenger]

The Northridge was down today. Anybody know if it will run tomorrow? I didn't think to ask when leaving the mtn today.

I thought it was wind, but I learned this morning that it was a "major" mechanical problem. Just read on the snow report that it was an electrical problem. It is scheduled to run tomorrow morning.

In case you haven't heard, the reason why that lift has so many problems is that it is the sacrificial lift of SB that absorbs all the bad karma from the other lifts.....

[freeheel_skier]

I thought it was wind, but I learned this morning that it was a "major" mechanical problem. Just read on the snow report that it was an electrical problem. It is scheduled to run tomorrow morning.

In case you haven't heard, the reason why that lift has so many problems is that it is the sacrificial lift of SB that absorbs all the bad karma from the other lifts.....

Thanks for the update. I will now check the sb online report....doh! As far as the "sacrificial lift" that makes much more sense. Thanks for clearing that up!

[shadyjay]

Seems like ever since they moved it to become the NRX, it has been cursed (from what I've read here). Bravo gets the curse every now and then, so its not just NRX.

[win]

Two unrelated electrical problems. It made need an exorcist!

Yesterday, we discovered an employee had erred in fixing a prior issue and disconnected a wire by mistake. Today, we are grounding out somewhere and trying to isolate the problem. Hopefully, this will be the end of the bad Karma.

[vonski]

Alright I think it might take some witch doctors or something on NRX.

However, I skied Friday and I can actually say I had a good day off GMX. I was freezing so took a chance with Which Way. The skiers left line along the woods was sweet, soft, crusty and firm. At times I was on a solid wash board. But it was awesome. NO one on the trail and I got warm. So I then tried Encore. It was the same, but troughs had filled in with snow. I got even warmer. The run out consisted of hitting sunny D area with snowmaking. sweet snow and great little whales to get some air off of. I also caught Bravo at 3:30 and I wish I had more legs left. It had filled in nicely by that time as well.

Saturday what a surprise. The upper mid mountain not as steep woods filled in nicely. Won't say exactly where as no one else was in those woods. Spent the day off the Summit Chair. got some extra sleep on the slow ride up, but the snow was great. Tried Which way and Encore and they had gotten windswept and encore beat up from skier traffic. Not as good as Friday actually.

So, I had two good Ellen days with out Northridge, did not think it was possible. But to my surprise I had a good two days.

But lets still get it fixed and uncursed. It still is the best lift on the whole mountain for the variety of terrain off of one lift.

[jwt]

Vonski posted: "It still is the best lift on the whole mountain for the variety of terrain off of one lift."

Never thought much about it ,but that is exactly right. Even beginners can access Rim Run, and the best challenging blue trail on ME - maybe all - is Elbow. Then the headwall of Bravo, Ext. and all of the lower blacks are accesible from NRX (tumbler/Hammer/Cliffs/Encore)

And the best woods are all accessible from NRX Elbow/Bravo/Ext and Way Back Woods - and a couple others I won't mention.

Quick, uncrowded, good verts. Wonder what the breakdown is on lift reliability is state-wide. It would have to be hours running without incident - not by date.

GH or SB can't be much better. Other areas got to have these problems - we just focus on our back yard. Still not easy to swallow when your friends come up and pay $74 ( or whatever it is now) and get stuck.

[boze]

The only upside of NRX not spinning Sat was that no one saw the insanely sweet conditions on Bravo during their ride up that chair.
It was pristine - at least until my son & I hit it twice for 1st (and 2nd) tracks. And that was at 930am/10am. Wow. While there was crust underneath, it was buried under 7-8" + windblown from Exterminator & others. Calf & even knee deep in many sections - - not the headwall, but even it had healthy cover over that crust. After taking 2 spins down Bravo we hit the woods. One lone set of tracks was all we saw. And saw no tracks in Wayback woods until we hit that as well (as these areas are on the trail map I've no issue 'sharing' this info!). That lasted until 11/1130am when some others came to take a peek. Must have been all our hooting and hollering. A surprise powder day is always a really good day.
Happy 2009.

Near top of Bravo 1/3/09 - notice the freshness underfoot!





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[freeheel_skier]

Ditto on Bravo and Exterminator. Kings to you boze for getting first tracks with your kids!

[boze]

Thx Freeheel. It's best to share, even on a powder day...

[freeheel_skier]

No friends on a powder day.....things change when kids are involved. I refer to my daughter as the "Human Rain Delay" , when its time to get out of the house!

[Tin Woodsman]

Down again today with mechanical problems.


Good times.

[vonski]

calling all witch dctors, excorsists, mechanics with knowledge! Sure am glad I could not make it up this weekend if it stays down. I know it is not the case but almost looking like cost saving measures at this point. the best lift on the mountain needs to be fixed and running correctly. maybe they need to go back to not running it during the week so it can work on weekends at least.

[freeheel_skier]

Just got back in from a nice but cold morning @ ME. Was going to ski from the summit to bravo and then down to northridge when we saw a lift ops snow machine on the ramp.....and people were still on the lift Not good. I talked with a couple of people who were stuck on the lift for 35min YIKES

From what I saw lift ops had to push the chairs around the bullwheel by hand because they were getting stuck. Now this is my observation. I still don't know what exactly happened.

Snowmaking on summit and FIS. Lets move some of that magic over to Cliffs.

[Go Figure]

maybe they need to go back to not running it during the week so it can work on weekends at least.

How about shutting it down on the weekend when the stress of a heavy load causes it to fail. As a 1991 HSQ it is near the end of its service life and needs to be replaced. On another note, get the SBX going asap. With the stairs at South, waits for bus and general dislike of buses in general I ski one area or the other. Passes were sold for 2 interconnected [not bus linked] mountains, get with it.