Page 1 of 5 123 ... LastLast
Results 1 to 15 of 70

Thread: Lifts

  1. #1

    Lifts

    So ummmmm anyone else notice something on Saturday???

    I have no problems with lifts being closed for windhold/safety reasons. That's out of the mountains control, but what was up with North Lynx and Valley House? A dozen or so yellow jackets up in the top with wrenches flying seems less like wind issues. Why do we have so many maintenance issues with the lifts? Instead of dropping coin on a cat to bring people up for dinners, adding more lodging, anti-PITA day care, etc how about spending some time/money on the lifts. I'm certain that's an unfair statement and money and time is being spent, but what is the dollar amount associated with getting them running a couple weekends in a row without issues and where's the hat being passed around to support it. I say put all other planning on hold and get the lifts running consistently. The lines this weekend were crazy and only exasperated by the fact that lifts were down for mechanical issues.

    As an attempt to deter the normal posted comments that would follow a post like this:



    - No the lifts were not down for just 5 minutes and yes it did effect the overall wait times. Especially when you hear rumors/statements that lifts are back up, you run over to them to ride up and they're down again.

    - On a normally crowded day my lift management plan is to head over to North however I definitely wasn't expecting such a big crowd with Prez weekend next weekend so I started at South and when I wanted to get over to North the SBX was down (surprise) and the North Lynx was down so I couldn't scoot through the trees to get there. No way I was standing on the bus to get over. My friend did de-boot and drive over and said the lines were better, but come on. If all the lifts that could have been running given conditions were running then silly work arounds like that wouldn't be necessary.

    - To be honest I'm starting to doubt some Wind Holds. Sure Saturday was windy and I believe everything was on wind hold legit, but I've seen North Ridge go on "Wind hold" and saw people toting parts down on a snow mobile from it. It's creating a Boy Who Cried Wolf effect for me.

    There. It's been said. Sorry, but it's what was on my mind and many others. To take a hockey term I'd say this Saturday was Bush League. Apologists have at me.

  2. #2

    Re: Lifts

    Quote Originally Posted by MntMan4Bush
    So ummmmm anyone else notice something on Saturday???

    I have no problems with lifts being closed for windhold/safety reasons. That's out of the mountains control, but what was up with North Lynx and Valley House? A dozen or so yellow jackets up in the top with wrenches flying seems less like wind issues. Why do we have so many maintenance issues with the lifts? Instead of dropping coin on a cat to bring people up for dinners, adding more lodging, anti-PITA day care, etc how about spending some time/money on the lifts. I'm certain that's an unfair statement and money and time is being spent, but what is the dollar amount associated with getting them running a couple weekends in a row without issues and where's the hat being passed around to support it. I say put all other planning on hold and get the lifts running consistently. The lines this weekend were crazy and only exasperated by the fact that lifts were down for mechanical issues.

    As an attempt to deter the normal posted comments that would follow a post like this:

    - No the lifts were not down for just 5 minutes and yes it did effect the overall wait times. Especially when you hear rumors/statements that lifts are back up, you run over to them to ride up and they're down again.

    - On a normally crowded day my lift management plan is to head over to North however I definitely wasn't expecting such a big crowd with Prez weekend next weekend so I started at South and when I wanted to get over to North the SBX was down (surprise) and the North Lynx was down so I couldn't scoot through the trees to get there. No way I was standing on the bus to get over. My friend did de-boot and drive over and said the lines were better, but come on. If all the lifts that could have been running given conditions were running then silly work arounds like that wouldn't be necessary.

    - To be honest I'm starting to doubt some Wind Holds. Sure Saturday was windy and I believe everything was on wind hold legit, but I've seen North Ridge go on "Wind hold" and saw people toting parts down on a snow mobile from it. It's creating a Boy Who Cried Wolf effect for me.

    There. It's been said. Sorry, but it's what was on my mind and many others. To take a hockey term I'd say this Saturday was Bush League. Apologists have at me.
    I was stuck on North Lynx two times Saturday afternoon at about 1:15 and 1:30 pm. Both times, I assume, was due to the wind, which was really, really bad at the summit. I was not aware of any other issues. I will say that when I check the snow reports, I am seeing "mechanical hold" become more and more of a catchphrase. One thing to consider is that the last new lift to be installed was GMX, and that was in 2002. Before that, we had:

    *Castlerock in 2001.
    *Bravo, Slidebrook, GH, and North Lynx/NRX Retrofits 1995 (?)
    *Original GMX installed in 1991, along with Inverness, Summit Quads.
    *Original Bravo and Heaven's Gate, installed in 1984.
    *Valley House, Sunny D, and Village--197* or 196*???

    My point: the lifts are getting older.....and any replacement/work will be costly.

  3. #3
    I think that's my point too so my question is how is this being addressed and when can we expect focus on them. I see a lot of emails about future plans for buildings and programs, but without lifts those seem pointless and superfluous.

  4. #4
    Add some money to the "stimulus" (aka pork bill) for some new chair lifts!

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by madhavok
    Add some money to the "stimulus" (aka pork bill) for some new chair lifts!
    I agree, it would be infrastructure development on National Forest!!!

  6. #6

    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    Saratoga Springs, NY
    Posts
    74
    Quote Originally Posted by MntMan4Bush
    I think that's my point too so my question is how is this being addressed and when can we expect focus on them. I see a lot of emails about future plans for buildings and programs, but without lifts those seem pointless and superfluous.
    I agree that working and reliable lifts should come first. All mafor lifts need to run at SB there is not top to bottom lift (not feasible). The "pod" skiing system breaks down when HG (or North Lynx) is down due to wind or otherwise. The winds this year have been tough and hopefully that's all it is.

    How about a Chondola on SBX? Every third chair as a gondola?

  7. #7

    Re: Lifts

    Quote Originally Posted by MntMan4Bush
    So ummmmm anyone else notice something on Saturday???

    I have no problems with lifts being closed for windhold/safety reasons. That's out of the mountains control, but what was up with North Lynx and Valley House? A dozen or so yellow jackets up in the top with wrenches flying seems less like wind issues. Why do we have so many maintenance issues with the lifts? Instead of dropping coin on a cat to bring people up for dinners, adding more lodging, anti-PITA day care, etc how about spending some time/money on the lifts. I'm certain that's an unfair statement and money and time is being spent, but what is the dollar amount associated with getting them running a couple weekends in a row without issues and where's the hat being passed around to support it. I say put all other planning on hold and get the lifts running consistently. The lines this weekend were crazy and only exasperated by the fact that lifts were down for mechanical issues.

    As an attempt to deter the normal posted comments that would follow a post like this:

    - No the lifts were not down for just 5 minutes and yes it did effect the overall wait times. Especially when you hear rumors/statements that lifts are back up, you run over to them to ride up and they're down again.

    - On a normally crowded day my lift management plan is to head over to North however I definitely wasn't expecting such a big crowd with Prez weekend next weekend so I started at South and when I wanted to get over to North the SBX was down (surprise) and the North Lynx was down so I couldn't scoot through the trees to get there. No way I was standing on the bus to get over. My friend did de-boot and drive over and said the lines were better, but come on. If all the lifts that could have been running given conditions were running then silly work arounds like that wouldn't be necessary.

    - To be honest I'm starting to doubt some Wind Holds. Sure Saturday was windy and I believe everything was on wind hold legit, but I've seen North Ridge go on "Wind hold" and saw people toting parts down on a snow mobile from it. It's creating a Boy Who Cried Wolf effect for me.

    There. It's been said. Sorry, but it's what was on my mind and many others. To take a hockey term I'd say this Saturday was Bush League. Apologists have at me.
    VH was running in the am or was it my imagination(not being sarcastic)? I didn't do much skiing at all on Sat. Mostly shuttling kids from lessons to daycare etc. Otherwise I would have been with the rest of my peeps @ ME. So my observations are skewed.

    As for winholds it was blowing pretty good on Sat and only got worse. I believe the winds were out of the SE and will affect Lincoln Peak more than ME.

    Was the issue with the NRE wind or mechanical?
    "Quietly Heartbroken Tennis Player."

  8. #8

    Re: Lifts

    Quote Originally Posted by freeheel_skier
    Was the issue with the NRE wind or mechanical?
    There was an electrical problem in morning delayed opening by about 1/2 hour, then went on windhold around 2 or so in the afternoon. So Both!!!

  9. #9
    Valley House was running in the AM. It went down in the afternoon though and the lines were still stacked even at the end of the day. People apparently didn't get the memo on Saturday that they should go in for lunch at lunch time and finish skiing at about 2 so the rest of us can have our mountain back....... It was a testament to the nice spring like conditions that day on natural snow trails. By nice I mean it was fun to ski, but sad to see teh snow go.

    The VH went down as a result of mechanical. I was a couple people back when it did and it didn't come back up after. I can't think of a more protected chair from the wind. NL went down for mechanical as well. There was a crew of 10 or so guys in the loft when I skated off of GH. The guy said it was down for Mechanical, but that Heaven's Gate just opened back up so we raced down, sat in SB line for a good time and over to HG to have it sitting idle. now HG I believe was on wind hold and understand that. Same with SBX (Even though it's already Feb and that lift has only been open 1 day this season).

    So in summary I have no issue with wind hold, provided it's a real wind hold and not an excuse to cover mechanical (read: NR chair early season). Safety comes first and it's Mountain Ops call to shut down for wind. Arguing their judgment is like trying to pose an argument against Ski Patrol being able to cut in line or trying to pull a Philly Cheese steak out of Rosie O'Donnell's hands. Fruitless. The issue is with all the mechanical problems this season.

  10. #10
    MM4B-

    Your observations on this matter seem pretty spot on. I was stuck on the CR chair for about 10 minutes. I presume it was a mechanical issue.

  11. #11
    Quick answer is that things break.

    They do maintenance inspections during the off-season. I have seen them working on each of the lifts at South, at various times. That won't catch everything. When things break, they jump.

    Whether you believe it or not, most lifts run almost all of the time they are supposed to. On days like Saturday, then there are peak crowds and peak winds (and people don't get the lunchtime and early closing memos?) every stop becomes more apparent. Not much can be done about that, except to point out that they are moving on it as soon as they can.



    As for North Lynx, early season, the problem was snow. That was the last pod to get snowmaking, and some areas had to be redone, due to weather. They ran it once, before the snow was made, but they quickly ran out of snow. It seemed like there was enough, but one warm day and both outside trails were mostly brown.
    .
    Two roads diverged in a wood,

    and I- I took the one less traveled by,


    And that has made all the difference.

  12. #12
    Fair enough that things break, but it is a huge hit to the mountain that they happen to break at the worst times. It seems to me that the number of outages this season has been higher then normal and I would attribute that to maintenance. I don't mean to knock the team doing it as I'm sure they're working hard, but 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.

    "Most lifts run all of the time they are supposed to". I choose to not believe it. 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. The percentage would be in your favor. 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. 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.

    Lunch time and leaving early memos was a joke. By that I mean sometimes the best times to ski are when everyone goes in for lunch and the lines shrink and after 2 PM when people are getting their early drink on. This Saturday people evidently didn't follow Standard Operating Procedure.

    North Lynx early season I think was actually North Ridge early season. NR was definitely mechanical issues early season. NL I'll buy that it was coverage issues with the exception of the weekend before it opened up. There was a ton of snow up there, plus they were blowing. My friends and I hiked up to do the Brook and snow depth was not an issue. You could have lost a midget with a top hat on in that stuff. .

  13. #13
    They are looking for a new lift mechanic... maybe they're understaffed right now? Hard to know if that would translate to whatever situation we may or may not have without knowing the real inner workings of maintenance though...
    Ithaca is (not) Vermont (but it is gorges)

  14. #14
    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

  15. #15
    I agree that Sugarbush did a tremendous job keeping the lifts open on Saturday given the incredible winds. Mechanical problems are quit common and if you spend enough time at a given resort you will notice that. I spent a season at Big Sky and we had one lift down for a few months because it caught fire, the base gondola was broken on and off half the season, and one of the other main base lifts was down the second half of the seasons. Could they spend more $ and have some silly Chondola? Sure. Do you want to pay $10 more a day for it?

    After the Castlerock line got long we scooted over to North (took 5 minutes) and had a great day with no lines and good conditions. I'm sorry you were not picked up by a magical carpet and taken over there, but some things in life take initiative. I guess attitudes like that keep the lines shorter for the rest of us.

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  


Ski Gear | Snowboard Gear | Cycling Gear | Camping/Hiking Gear | Ski & Snowboard Racks | Gear Outlet | Men's Clothing | Women's Clothing | Kids' Clothing

Ski Vermont | Whiteface / Gore Message Boards