Lifts

[shadyjay]

I feel everyone's pain in regards to the lift situation over the weekend. Both lifts I was working at went down. NL's issue on Sat was mechanical, and around 3:15 or so, we went on wind hold. On Sunday, we had more mechanical issues with Gate House, which led to its early closing. Our lift mechanics are great and they get the job done... I know of one who came in during the evening hours after going home to solve a lift issue. That's commitment... something we all have to have. If we don't act, then you won't get up the hill and have fun. Talking with the dispatcher from the weekend this morning, she had quite a predicament on her hands, with multiple lift issues, wind and mechanical. Few lifts operated flawlessly the whole weekend (carpet?). I assure you, the winds on Saturday and Sunday were brutal. On Sunday, the sky turned dark in the morning hours and we got hit with a heavy snow squall at top of Gate House. It helped to make our ramps look a little nicer. But with it came the wind... during which we monitor the chairs moving up the hill and observe any swaying. Bases of most lifts also have wind speed/direction units (forgot the official name). Direction plays a big part... for North Lynx, if the wind is coming down the line, its generally ok. If after observing the chairs sway, we call for a wind check. If that person declares its too windy, they clear the line and put the lift on a wind hold, monitoring the situation every so often to reopen as soon as it is safe to.

Especially on a busy day like on Saturday, us "upper mountain" lift ops don't always know the status of every lift on the mountain. On a good day, we can call dispatch and get the word, but with only one dispatcher on duty dealing with phone calls, radio, paperwork, etc, an operator calling to find out the status of a lift is not always possible. Therefore we resort to either the "visual" (I can see Heaven's Gate from here, its moving, and there's people on it), or the hearsay method. Both are subject to change. Only our supervisors carry radios with them so we rely on what we hear from them. However if HG is on windhold or mechanical delay, a North Lynx operator isn't going to know right away, vs a Super Bravo operator which would know and post it on his/her whiteboard. When in doubt, guest services would know what is going on.

I hope this explains things a little more. There's A LOT that goes on behind the scenes that you're not going to know while riding the lift, waiting in line, etc. Rest assured that each and every one of us has a goal and that's to get you up the mountain as safely and as quick as possible. We regret any inconveniences and delays.

[Lostone]

Or actually to put it more accurately that if you are measuring time in minutes and out of maybe 3k minutes in a given week that a lift is supposed to be running it is then I'd believe you.

That would be how you would determine if something was working most of the time.

However if you measure in a span of how many days does the mountain go without a lift being down I'd have to argue.

With the amount of lifts and an 8 hour day, I'd find that hard to argue against. My point would be that would not be considered odd in the least, in any resort/ski area.

If you were to limit that to weekends only when we see most of the volume and it is more evident and likely matters the most then it would be hard to not agree with me.

If you only monitor it for 5 minutes, and it was down for one of those minutes it would be down for 20% of the time. In my engineering life, we'd have called that very selective monitoring of the data. We would say that was bad data.

It is one of the axioms of Murphy's law that shoe laces only break when you are going somewhere. You're right. It was a terrible time for the lifts to go down. They jumped to try to get them back on line. Now, had it been a weekday... They would have jumped to try to get them back on line.

has the mountain budgeted in for the right repairs and upgrades to make it work? When something breaks it's an indication that it needs to be fixed because either it was a rare accident or result of lack of long term maintenance. If it's the former there's little that can be done. If it's the later then there's an issue.

I would agree. I have stated that I have seen maintenance done in the off season. I believe the problem to be the former situation. Is there some data that you have, that there was an insufficient budget for maintenance?

And I recognized the lunchtime vacancies was a joke, as was my response.

[Lostone]

This thread is just another example of how this board is becoming useless....

I disagree.

These points are debated everywhere, (Like in the liftline, when the lift goes down? ;shock: ) and I think it is good to get both (all?) sides aired. It is on of the purposes of the board(s).

Will it solve anything?

How can it?

[djd66]

This thread is just another example of how this board is becoming useless....
It was blowing 50....I have never seen wind at the top of Bravo like on Saturday. They ran the damn lift at 3/4, just so they could keep it open. Do you think they wanted the wind holds? Do you you think they wanted the joeys asking for their money back because they were too lazy to go to North (and they were exhausted after skiing an hour and intimidated by the big scary wind). Stop the madness. Just shut up

CR - Look, I was on the SB lift on Saturday too, I agree the wind was something! I had to pull my 4 y/o daughter off of the lift like she was stcuk on velco b/c the wind was so strong,... BUT I have to say I agree with a lot of what Mtman says. I went over to NL right after we rode SB. The lift shut off for what seemed like 5-10 minutes 3 time when i was on it. Then it shut down and there were a bunch of guys working on it.

It does seem to me that there are a lot of lift break downs at SB. In my 35 years of skiing many areas - I think the Bush has more lift stoppage B/C of breakdown than any other area I ski. This is not based on anything but my experience.

As far as "Joey's asking for money back, I guess I don't blame someone asking for money or a voucher - when there are only 2 lift going and I paid $70+ for a ticket - and some of the lifts are shut down for mechanical reasons.

As far as your comment "too lazy" to go to North, let me ask you - DO YOU HAVE KIDS????? Even if you don't have kids, Did you drive 3.5 -7 hrs already to get to the Bush (depending on where you came from) Is that Lazy if spent say $300+ on tickets and you don't want to get back in your car again?

Lastly, I don't think this board is useless at all. I get a lot of good information and appreciate the fact that the owner of the mountain reads the posts.

[MntMan4Bush]

CastleRock your insight and attitude are most helpful. Please keep it up. If you can answer me a question though, Is it lonely up there on your pedestal? Stow the theatrics and high and mighty attitude. Lift closings suck. Lifts that go down for wind I have no issue with as I have stated throughout my posts. Nothing can be done about that and it's a reality we have to deal with. I stayed the full day and skied to the end. I wasn't a one and done because I wanted to ski and get in s many turns despite the line conditions. Know your audience.

What is pointless is telling someone to shut up on a thread who's purpose is for information sharing and gathering.

5 minutes to North? What the hell are you driving? F1 McClaren? Do you find it hard to push in the clutch with ski boots on? I'll bet it handles corners like Foxworthy handles grammar.

[MntMan4Bush]

Lostone - I guess my point was that if a lift goes down on a weekend with a limited crowd then the effects aren't as dramatic. Crowd maintenance isn't as bad of an issue and no one walks away feeling they had a bad day (Well I guess you can't please all so the majority don't feel that way). However the weekends are when new people come to the mountain to scope things out and spend some coin. If they show up and the lifts go down their impression is going to be less then favorable. It's these days that fall under the microscope most and are what the mountain needs to be prepared for. Murphy's Law or not it seems that the lifts have been down on weekends quite a bit this year for MECHANICAL (please read this CastleRock I wouldn't want you to misconstrue) reasons. I don't know what the cause is, but I would think that perhaps more money spent for maintenance, parts, whatever it takes to get a lift running and keep it running would be required. As I see the Powder Cat or whatever it's called sitting nice and pretty on the side I can't help but wonder if instead of spending money on things like this and focusing on building development, what if the money was spent on lifts to support the skiers who pay for the tickets and lodging?

This is the impression I have as a frequent Sugarbush skier and season pass holder. I'm not just a one or two weekends a year skier, but spend quite a bit of time and money here. I'm curious what's going on and when/how it will be resolved.

To all others please bash away. It amuses me.

[Lostone]

How many times were the lifts down for mechanical reasons this season?

Last season? (This same subject was discussed last season.)

The year before?

My point is that you might perceive it as more, but was it really? I don't have the numbers. Do you? Do you have any evidence that the money spent for the cabin cat was gathered by deferring maintenance? Do you have any evidence that maintenance was deferred?

It does the resort no good to allow the lifts not to run. There is no profit in letting people go away saying things don't work well. You're statements say you don't believe the management doesn't realize this. Can you really believe this is true?

A couple years ago, Guest Services was being hammered by people complaining of 2 hour lift lines. The person in charge sent an ambassador to each running lift to time the line by checking the time into the line to onto the lift. I had the longest time. It was Castlerock. It was 37 minutes. That was on a Saturday Powder day, with Heaven's Gate on windhold.

My point is that sometimes the perception is wrong.

That may not be the case. here, but it might. I'd need to see the data.

[MntMan4Bush]

I don't have access to that and how would I? Everything is about perception and as a paying customer it's my perception that matters along with all the other paying customers. So someone please dispute my perception with facts. As someone who comes up every weekend (and if not me my housemate only misses one weekend a year) I think we have a decent knowledge base to go off of for lift closings. I'd love to hear the mountain's factual numbers. However if they try and say that a lift like NR wasn't down due to mechanical for most of the early season I'm calling BS right away.

As for how money is spent again how would I know? I see other things in the works though and lifts down. So I'll assume that more money cold have been spent on maintenance. I'm not saying anyone shorted a fund or the current resources didn't do their job, but if you know the lifts are an issue (and most everyone here agrees that some are bad/old lifts) then how about upping the funds that go into them. That's all I'm saying here.

I guess CR is right about one thing. My post will result in nothing, so just file this under "complaint". I'll still be up next weekend. It just sucks and I'd like to see it fixed.

[freeheel_skier]

5 minutes to North? What the hell are you driving? F1 McClaren? Do you find it hard to push in the clutch with ski boots on? I'll bet it handles corners like Foxworthy handles grammar.

^^^^^^^^

Classic! Hall of Fame quote!

Thanks for making me laugh!

As for the lazy comment regarding driving over to North....I have a ME Plus pass. I had one child in lessons and the other in a 1/2 day of daycare Saturday. Against my better judgement (Saturday being a busy day and SE winds) my wife and I decided exercise our "Plus" option because we were feeling "lazy". I actually dropped the wife off to check said children into daycare and lessons. I had to drive back to ME to pick up some gear I left in my locker....doh!!!! It aint 5min...more like 5miles! Do the fugggn' math!

BTW, I am not complaining. Both kids had a great time. Wifey and myself actually made some turns together. Good Times.

[HowieT2]

There is 'nothing more frustrating then lifts down for mechanical reasons. Since I ski the vast majority of my days at SB I can't compare whether SB has more issues with this than other mountains. However, saturday was the first "bad" lift day I can recall this season and I think last year was worse. I guess someone can check the archives for the threads from last season.
Obviously there isn't anything that can be done about windholds. But I wish they would do a better job of communicating lift status with signs.
Days like saturday make me yearn for a spanking new high speed triple VH lift.

[win]

When we say windhold, it is that. As I had said in the past several times, windholds are the sole discretion of lift maintenance, and their number one concern is everyone's safety. Frankly, they did an amazing job of keeping the lifts running on Saturday with only having to put Heaven's Gate on windhold. One primary reason that the lift lines got to be 15 minutes at one point was that the lifts were slowed down in order to keep them open.

We you are on a lift and there is a mechanical, it seems like the lifts are down all the time. That is understandable. The fact is that our lifts run with the same reliability as the industry. We track this carefully. Even brand new lifts will have mechanical and electrical issues. Imagaines machines running with heavy loads ( all chairs filled) and with inclement weather on many days. The reason why all resorts have mechanics stationed around all day is to deal with problems when they arise and to fix them quickly.

[Yard Sale]

I wish they would do a better job of communicating lift status with signs.

I know other resorts (Vail) have boards with green yellow red lights indicating operating status including wait times. A system like this would enhance visitor's enjoyment as well as help distribute traffic burdens through out the resort.

[chuck]

It's all shadyjay's fault.....

[John Walden]

To Win:

I think the mountain did a great job keeping lifts running this past weekend. We did start at LP, but left for ME as I know the wind direction wouldn't be a hinderance at North. We didn't make it to North in 10 minutes as Castlerock stated. Skiing was greatl; did lower FIS three times. Skiied LP on Sunday; top of the mountain was in great shape , but lower down was pretty scratchy.

[sgottmann]

It's all shadyjay's fault.....

That must be how he got the name "shady"